My Turn: A case for reparations DANIEL A. BROWN Published: 4/22/2021 8:40:23 AM Barring its current controversies, in the years immediately following the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the nation was an impoverished mess. Many of its population were living in tent cities, the infrastructure was in name only and the country suffered an austerity more severe than what Great Britain was enduring. Food rationing allowed each Israeli citizen a meager 1,600 calories a day. Contrary to popular misconceptions, Israel had received no armaments or foreign aid from the United States. The entity that put Israel on its feet was none other than West Germany in the form of reparations for the crime of the Holocaust.