New York’s Mayor Robert F. Wagner became the first recipient today of an honorary degree from Bar-Ilan University, the American-sponsored Mizrachi university which will open its doors to its first students this Fall. In Jerusalem, later, he visited the Hebrew University where president Benjamin Mazar presented him with a copy of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the Book of Isaiah.
In Jerusalem he was received by President Itzhak Ben Zvi and lunched with Premier Moshe Sharett. He was also received by Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog and participated in the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the World Academy for Higher Jewish Studies on a site opposite Mt. Herzl.
Mayor Wagner, Premier Sharett, Chief Rabbi Herzog and American Ambassador Edward B. Lawson addressed the ceremony. Mayor Wagner pointed out the role of the United States in giving haven to Jews fleeing persecution and discrimination and lauded Israel’s progress in science.
Yesterday Mayor Wagner, who completes his four-day tour of Israel Wednesday, was the guest of the Haifa municipality and was escorted through the city and its environs by Mayor Abba Khoushi who also awarded him a key to the city at a short City Hall ceremony. Later, Mayor Wagner attended the dedication of the Robert F. Wagner tree nursery near Haifa, a project sponsored in his honor by the Bnai Zion order of New York. During a visit to Nazareth yesterday, the Wagner party picnicked in a wood named for the late Sen. Robert F. Wagner, his father, who was one of the leading spirits in the American Christian Zionist movement in the U.S.
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.
