Israel Ambassador Simcha Dinitz predicted here that if a new Middle East war should erupt, Israel “will fight it decisively, quickly and victoriously. There is more energy in the Jewish people than in all the Arab oil wells together. No power on earth will dislodge us from the small but lofty Rock of Israel.”
Dinitz made this statement at a dinner sponsored by the Hapoel Hamizrachi Women’s Organization. More than 500 Zionist and Jewish leaders paid tribute to Rabbi and Mrs. Israel Miller at the dinner held Sunday night at the Plaza Hotel for their “leadership on behalf of many worthy causes and for their activities leading to the growth of a vibrant Jewish life in America.”
In addition, Rabbi Miller, who is chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was honored as a “fighter on behalf of Israel’s security and survival, and as a most able spokesman of the American Jewish community in his discussions with the White House, the State Department, and in the halls of Congress.” Mrs. Miller is active in the Hapoel organization which sponsors a network of day-care centers in Israel, among other projects.
PREDICTS CHALLENGES WILL BE MET
Dinitz, who paid tribute to Rabbi Miller and delivered tributes to the meeting from scores of American and Israeli officials, including President Ford. Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Golda Meir. said that Israel and the American Jewish community recognized the challenges confronting them. He asserted that these challenges would be met successfully “because of the inner spiritual resources of the Jewish people which stem from their traditions and ideals.”
Dinitz appealed to American Jews to come to live in Israel “for the nourishment that only Israel can give to Jews”; urged Jews “to improve the qualitative nature of Jewish society, inasmuch as we cannot match the quantitative resources of those who would destroy us”; and called on American Jews to become emissaries in explaining Israel’s problems and aspirations to the broad American community.
In acknowledging the tributes, Rabbi Miller said that whatever he has been privileged to accomplish on behalf of Jewry and Israel arose out of his deep spiritual convictions about the Jewish way of life and out of his Zionist ideology. He said that “our faith and our destiny as American Jews is tied up with that of our brethren in Medinat Yisroel, where ultimately we, too, must fulfill our lives.”
In a reference to the demand by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy that Israel limit aliya and her population growth for the next 50 years. Rabbi Miller asserted. “We don’t believe in zero population growth for the Jewish people in Israel. Zionists must continue to build the land. We shall give of ourselves and we shall give them our children.”
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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.
