Ten Israeli veterans who were wounded fighting to protect the Jewish State are rounding out their second week in Washington, visiting national shrines and making many friends as guests of American families. They will leave here tomorrow for a weekend in New York before returning to Israel.
The group, reflecting Israeli informality and democratic ways, including a captain and a lieutenant but is headed by a sergeant, Yitzhak Yariv, of Haifa, who is an industrial engineer in company manufacturing medical electronic devices. His spine was injured when he was thrown from a jeep that overran a mine in the Sinai during the Six-Day War.
Among them also is infantry Sgt. Tuvia Beten, who was wounded in three separate army actions and served in the 1967 and 1973 wars. Wearing a little blue yarmulka is parachutist Cpl. Yosif Weiner, who lost an eye from a mine near Jericho in 1967. He is from Kibbutz Einzurim in Ashkelon.
The group is the third from among the 22,500 Israeli war-injured personnel to visit America. The idea originated with Mrs. Donald Robinson of Pittsburgh for American volunteers to entertain small groups of the disabled in the United States. The first group of a dozen visited Pittsburgh in 1975. Last year another group of 12 came to Washington.
Now plans are being formed for veterans to go in future years to other American cities, too. Detroit and Chicago were indicated as probabilities at a reception for the veterans this week at the residence of Ambassador and Mrs. Simcha Dinitz.
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