The celebration of Israel’s tenth anniversary of independence opened officially today with huge public meetings through the length and breadth of the land. Members of the Cabinet and other public officials addressed the gatherings.
The chief meeting was held here, with Foreign Minister Golda Meir as the featured speaker. Mrs. Meir took the occasion to reply to Soviet Premier Khrushchev, to whom she merely referred as an “important world statesman,” characterizing as “sheer nonsense” his recent remarks that the Jewish people could not work together and could not make any contribution whether to industry or collective agriculture.
The achievements of Israel and of its working people, she said, was sufficient reply to these “timeworn canards.” As for Mr. Khrushchev’s charge of the “exaggerated intellectualism” of the Jews, Mrs. Meir said that if this were a sin she was prepared to plead guilty.
Similar meetings in Jaffa, Nathanya, Ramath Gan and other towns were addressed by Kadish Luz, Agriculture Minister, Behor Shitreet, Police Minister, Pinchas Saphir, Minister for Trade and Industry, and others. Meanwhile, preparations are proceeding throughout the Israeli city and countryside for month-long celebrations. In as far apart centers as Beersheba, in the Negev, to Ramat Gan, on the coast, streets were being decorated and floodlit.
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