A group of American youths, aged 13 to 17, left for Israel today aboard an El AL jet airliner to participate in a seven-week summer camp program sponsored by the National Committee for Labor Israel in cooperation with Histadrut. The Israeli camp-site is Kfar Hayarok, a modern agricultural training center of Histadrut north of Tel Aviv.
The 140 campers will be joined at Kfar Hayarok by an additional group of 50 American teenagers scheduled to depart from New York on July 19. Both American groups will spend the summer together with 150 Israelis of their own age and will participate in a program of activities which includes field-trips to all parts of Israel, informal Hebrew studies, sports, arts and crafts and optional work on the village farm.
According to Dr. Sol Stein, executive director of the National Committee for Labor Israel, this summer camp program, the first of its kind to be sponsored by an American organization, will give American Jewish youngsters the opportunity of spending a summer in the atmosphere of modern Israel and of establishing direct contact with the pioneering youth of the Jewish state. Such contacts, Dr. Stein pointed out, will “strengthen the bond of unity between the American-Jewish community and the Israeli Jews and deepen the existing friendship between the U.S. and the State of Israel.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.