Menahem Beigin, member of the Israel Parliament and leader of the Herut party, last night called upon American Jewry to raise $1,500,000 for the Israel Government to erect a new hospital for the mentally ill to replace the one located in the fortress prison at Acre. The Herut leader proposed that the fortress become a national shrine to commemorate the liberation of the prisoners from the building carried out by the Irgun on May 4, 1947.
Addressing a meeting at Carnegie Hall here last night. Mr. Beigin said that the story of the Israeli War of Liberation was great in fiction but greater in reality. The address marked the beginning of a country-wide lecture tour by Mr. Beigin on the topic “Exodus, Fiction and Reality.”
Mr. Beigin paid tribute to all fighters for freedom, members of Haganah, Palmach, Irgun, Lechi and Machal, stating that the fighters of the Irgun never asked for a special gratitude or distinction but curiously enough, whenever a book is published or a movie filmed, the decisive part played by the Irgun in the liberation of Israel is either diminished or distorted.
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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.