Some ten thousand Montreal Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors marched with brass bands and floats yesterday in a festive celebration of the tenth anniversary of the re-unification of Jerusalem. The event brought out more than 20,000 spectators who gathered at MacKenzie King Park after the two hour parade to hear words of greeting from Gen. (ret) Uzi Narkiss who commanded the forces that liberated Old Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967.
“Jerusalem is now a free, united city awaiting immigrants from the Diaspora,” Narkiss, who presently heads the Jewish Agency’s aliya department, told the throng. Other speakers included Deputy Mayor Roger Roy representing Mayor Jean Drapeau of Montreal; Mayor Bernard Land of Cote St. Luc, a Jewish suburb of Montreal; Israeli Consul General Zvi Caspi; Philip Givens, president and Leo Kronitz, executive vice president of the Canadian Zionist Federation; and Thomas Hecht, chairman of the Jerusalem Day celebration.
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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.