Three leaders of the American Jewish Committee’s New York chapter left for Israel tonight to offer assistance to Maalot. The chapter “adopted” Maalot in 1968 and has provided educational materials for it in the intervening years. Before leaving for Israel, the delegation met with Mayor Abraham Beame at City Hall this morning. The Mayor asked the group to deliver a message to the Mayor of Maalot, expressing his “sympathy and sorrow at the murder of innocent children.”
In his message to the Maalot Mayor, Beame added that “we share with you a sense of irreparable loss, compounded by the grief of such senseless and pointless murder.” In addition to the Mayor’s message, the AJ Committee delegates are also bringing messages of condolence from New York Senators Jacob K. Javits and James Buckley and N.Y. Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz.
While in Israel, the delegation will meet with the Mayor of Safad, the community in which most of the murdered children resided. They will visit with and express the chapter’s condolences to the families of the children who were killed. They are also expected to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Kenneth B. Keating, and confer with other Israeli officials. The members of the delegation are Howard L. Greenberg, treasurer of the chapter, and Dean of the Practicing Law Institute; Walter Brecher, member of the chapter’s executive board and former president of the AJ Committee Long Island Chapter; and Haskell L. Lazere, director of the chapter.
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