1000 Say Farewell to Rabin

Some 1000 trade unionists and Labor Zionists paid tribute last night to Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin at a farewell sponsored by the National Committee for Labor Israel. Sol C. Chaikin, national chairman of the American Trade Union Council for Histadrut, said that before Rabin came to Washington, “the Arabists were securely ensconced ” in the State Department and that Department officials “were not, previous to his (Rabin’s) coming known for their friendship to Israel.”

It was Rabin’s task, Chaikin stated, to establish a rapport, an understanding, so they might listen and then be persuaded to a course of action. Rabin was successful in his job, he noted. Applause greeted Chaikin when he said that if the sentiments of warmth and appreciation for Rabin’s work expressed at the gathering could be translated into votes, “we will have the occasion to see Rabin as a member of the (Israeli) government.” He presented Rabin with a Torah breast plate which had inscribed in silver the words: “a tree of life to those who hold fast to it.”

Uzi Bloch, representative of the Histadrut Executive in the United States, who spoke on behalf of Histadrut in Israel, said that the people of Israel and Histadrut were welcoming Rabin home “after a life here fully and totally dedicated to the people and the country (Israel).”

Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, president of the Labor Zionist Alliance, called Rabin “an Israeli Ambassador who taught an American administration how to keep the peace in the Middle East by making Israel strong enough so there has been no war in the past few years.” Mrs. Blanche Fine, vice president of Pioneer Women, paid tribute to Leah Rabin wife of Ambassador Rabin, as an ambassador in her own right.