Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has accepted an invitation from President Zalman Shazar to visit Israel. No date has been announced. The Queen will be accompanied by her husband, Prince Henrik, a French-born former diplomat. Shazar extended the invitation during his visit here to attend the funeral of King Frederik IX.
Meanwhile, the Israeli chief of state himself accepted an invitation from President Kristjan Eldjarn of Iceland to visit that country, probably next year. The two met at King Frederik’s funeral. Shazar had been scheduled to visit Iceland in the spring of 1967 but his trip was cancelled by the Middle East crisis that sparked the Six-Day War.
SHAZAR DEFENDS ‘DANISH CONVERSIONS’
Shazar talked at length in private with Denmark’s Chief Rabbi Bent Melchior last night when both were guests at the home of Israel Ambassador Moshe Leshem. According to sources present they discussed among other things recent allegations made in some Orthodox circles abroad that conversions performed by Rabbi Melchior were not valid. On leaving the Ambassador’s home, Shazar told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the allegations were “pure nonsense” and that Rabbi Melchior had been “falsely accused.”
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