Emphasizing that “America was founded by people, many of whom came to these shores to escape religious persecution abroad,” Vice President Richard M. Nixon, speaking at the archaeological exhibition “From the Land of the Bible” in the Smithsonian Institution here, stressed the fact that the Bible had “great influence” on the early Americans.
The Vice President said that the exhibition, presented by the American Fund for Israel Institutions, is coming to the United States “at a particularly appropriate moment in our history. ” He spoke of the “great conflict which is now going on in the world between the forces of darkness and totalitarianism and the forces which are represented by the free nations.”
Mr. Nixon thanked the government of Israel on behalf of the people and government of the United States for “holding these symbols of our faith and these symbols of your faith — because they are related — in trust for the peoples of many faiths throughout the world. These are crucial times, and it is a welcome symbol of friendship and hope when one people extends their gesture of common faith to another.”
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Abba S. Eban, pointed out that individual morality, social justice and universal peace, the primary gifts of the Hebrew people and the land of Israel to the world, were illustrated in the monuments and relics of many ages which were to be found at the exhibition.
“This exhibition is worthy of its place in this Capita of freedom,” the Ambassador continued. “The founders of the American Republic freely acknowledged their debt to the Hebrew tradition for those truths of individual, social and international virtue on which democracy is founded. The modern struggle between peace and aggression, between freedom and tyranny is the same battle, waged against the awesome background and hazards of atomic power, as that which Israel has so constantly fought, the classic rebellion of the Hebrew mind against the claims of excessive human authority.”
Acting Premier Moshe Sharett of Israel, in a message, said that in their common devotion to the principles of freedom, the peoples of Israel and the United States will find the strongest foundation of their solidarity and friendship.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
