The director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism today disclosed an impressive calendar of events with which Israel will mark her 20th anniversary year in 1968 and which, she hopes, will not only attract a record number of visitors from abroad but permanent residents and immigrants as well.
Meir de Shalit, who stopped over here briefly to launch a tourist promotion campaign, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that preparations for the 20th anniversary program were being made on the highest Government level. President Zalman Shazar officially inaugurated the year in a special proclamation last November, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. Preparations are in the hands of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who heads a special ministerial committee appointed for the purpose. The director-general of the Prime Minister’s office, Dr. Yaakov Herzog, is personally in charge of implementing the program, and Mr. de Shalit is in charge of information and promotion abroad. He plans to visit the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, France and Italy on his way home.
Some of the events coming up, Mr. de Shalit said, are the traditional Purim carnival in Tel Aviv, the presentation of the first fruit on Shavuot, and the Independence Day parade to be held on May 2, for the first time in a united Jerusalem.
An international trade fair will be held in Tel Aviv from June 4 to 22. There will also be celebrations of Navy Day and Airforce Day, with parades; and the traditional music festival at Ein Gev, on the Sea of Galilee, for the first time not menaced by Syrian guns, Mr. de Shalit said.
The international diamond industry will hold its convention in Israel this year, as will the Bahai. a religious sect which has its Temple on Mt. Carmel in Haifa. There will also be a convention of the Mahal, foreign volunteers who fought in Israel’s armed forces, an international congress of gynecologists, an international conference of junior chambers of commerce, the 27th World Zionist Congress, and the fourth conference of the World Hebrew Union. A unique event will be the world Olympiad of paraplegics, an event that usually takes place at Stoke-Mandeville in England where Prof. Ludwig Guttman has established a world famous rehabilitation center.
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