Robert F. Wagner today proclaimed Wednesday, November 30, as “Histadrut Day” in recognition of the “vital role in the actual creation of the State of Israel” by the Histadrut, Israel’s Federation of Labor.
A copy of the official proclamation was presented this morning at a ceremony in the City Hall to leaders of the National Committee for Labor Israel which is conducting the Histadrut fund-raising campaign in this country. In another expression of the proclamation of Histadrut Day, Times Square will be renamed Histadrut Square at a ceremony on Wednesday.
Mayor Wagner’s proclamation noted that Histadrut, in its 40-year history, “has aided in the absorption of countless thousands of immigrants and helped convert them into free citizens of a dynamic democracy in the Middle East.”
Israel Concul General Binyamin Eliav, paying tribute to the Histadrut at the convention of the National Committee for Labor Israel said that the decisive act in creating the new Jewish nation in Palestine was, half a century ago, the revolutionary decisions of a handful of pioneers to start tilling the soil with their own hands–both as hired laborers in Jewish farms and as members of newly created free collective settlements, the first of which was Degania. “Without this act of free will, the Jewish colonies in Palestine would have gradually degenerated into plantations with Arab labor and would have disappeared,” he stated.
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.
