Mrs. Stapleton Says Carter Asked Israelis to Send Letters to Camp David Expressing the Wish for Peac

Mrs. Ruth Carter Stapleton, Evangelist sister of President Carter, and Mayor Teddy Kollek, cabled the participants at the Camp David summit to wish them success in their deliberations and to let them know that both Mrs. Stapleton and Kollek were praying for peace in the Middle East. The joint cable was sent Thursday at the end of Mrs. Stapleton’s visit to City Hall. She is currently visiting Israel as the head of a group of 70 Christian pilgrims.

In the meeting between Kollek and the group, Mrs. Stapleton said she received word from Carter asking the people of Israel to send letters to Camp David expressing the wish for peace. She said that during her visit around the country she found many Israelis praying for peace.

Kollek, referring to the prayer for peace voiced by Premier Menachem Begin, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Carter at Camp David, said that in Jerusalem, too, the prayer for peace can be heard at the Western Wall, in the mosques and churches. In addition to prayers, he added, members of the three faiths also express in their daily activities their ability to live together.

TREES PLANTED IN JNF FORESTS

On Friday, Mrs. Stapleton and members of the American National Basketball Association champions, the Washington Bullets, planted trees in several Jewish National Fund forests. "I’ll come back to see my tree, " she said during a brief tree-planting ceremony in the American Bicentennial Park in the Jerusalem Hills, Deeply affected by the ceremony, Mrs. Stapleton read from the planter’s psalm before bending down to cover the roots of the young sapling.

Each of the pilgrims also planted a tree and expressed their wish to return to Israel with their families and friends. Members of the Washington Bullets also planted trees at the JNF forest at the Golani junction, which bears the name of the late Dr. Martin Luther King. The Bullets were in Israel to play against the Maccabi Five in Tel Aviv.