Israeli, Egyptian Students Break Bread and Other Goodies at Fete

An official of the Israeli Student Organization in the United States and Canada reported today that Israeli students were invited for the first time last night by the Egyptian Student Organization at New York University to attend the Egyptian students’ annual dinner at the university. Naomi Ben-Gur, national secretary of the Israeli student group, in reporting on the invitation, said that 20 Israeli students, most of them attending NYU, joined with the 15 Egyptian students for the event.

She told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that when Amin Ebady, chairman of the Egyptian group at NYU, extended the invitation, in response to the peace agreement by Egypt and Israel, she had suggested that the Israeli invitees should be active participants in the event and not merely guests.

Ms. Ben-Gur said the highlights of the dinner event included brief talks by Ebady and herself, the showing of Films of Cairo and of a tour of Israel, the latter film being brought to the event by the Israeli students, and food cooked by the wives of the Egyptian students which she said the Israeli guests agreed was delicious. She said most of the Egyptian students were studying for their doctorates and invited their faculty mentors– about 10 — to join the party.

She said an Israeli firm which imports flowers from Israel, sent hundreds of carnations from its office in New York to the dinner and that the -Egyptian students took the Israeli flowers with them when the dinner ended. Ebady expressed the hope that more than 30 years of Israeli-Egyptian conflict was over and that war between the two nations would never happen again. Ms. Ben-Gur said, “we, the people” would have to act to insure that the treaty was transformed from a formal document into a fact of life for both peoples.

She said plans were made for smaller meetings at residences of the students and for similar dinners at campuses where there are Egyptian and Israeli students. She said there are 22 Israeli student organization branches at colleges in many parts of the United States and twice as many Egyptian student campus groups.