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the establishment of the state. This continuity was also mentioned in several major newspapers around the world.
The Knesset convened in the National Institutions Building for two and a half months: from December 26, 1949 to March 12, 1950. The conditions were neither comfortable for the hosts, the employees of the National Institutions, nor for the "guests" – Members of the Knesset and government, their advisors and aides. Although the building was large and wide, it was not large enough to contain the frantic activity of the state's institutions and the building's employees. It is enough to remember that in that year 1949, at the end of which the Knesset and the government entered the Institutions Building, the institutions themselves worked at a highly intensive pace. Thus, for example, the Aliya (Immigration) and Absorption Departments of the Jewish Agency dealt with 240 thousand Olim (immigrants), bringing them to Israel, receiving them here, housing and employing them. Incidentally, this was an all-time record year for immigration in Israel. The Settlement Department of the Agency established 116 new localities that year – also an all-time record for a single year.
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The First Knesset moved from the National Institutions Building to its temporary residence in Frumin House, several hundred meters away