“The principles of democracy and equality which prevail in Israel must sooner or later spread to the peoples of the Arab states,” Mrs. Golda Myerson, Israel’s Minister of Labor, declared here today. “So long as there is Israel, there is hope for the entire Middle East,” she added She spoke at the concluding session of the four-day mid-winter convention of the Hadassah.
The conference adopted a decision to increase the membership of the Hadassah from 300,000 to 500,000 to enable the organization to expand its medical and social welfare program in Israel. The fifth annual Henrietta Szold Award for distinguished humanitarian service was presented at the session today to Associate Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court. A check of $1,000 accompanied the award.
Arthur Lourie, Israel consul general, told the meeting that “Israel, with all its shortcomings and difficulties, is more than a state–it is a universal idea. For it incorporates within itself and is infused with the idea, of a house for the persecuted and oppressed, the nations of liberty and equality, of progress and industry, of individual dignity.”
Mrs. Samuel J. Rosensohn, president of Hadassah, called on the members of the organization to raise the necessary funds to enable Israel to maintain “its open-door policy” in view of the new developments in Eastern Europe. “Israel and the Jewish people need Hadassah – its experience, its strength, its understanding of the health and education problems which wave after wave of immigration must bring to a new and small country.”
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