A group of 45 Egyptian Jews, most of them elderly, are due in Israel tomorrow as guests of a group of travel agencies, hotels and transportation companies which joined together to make the tour possible. The purpose is to enable them to meet Israeli relatives and to see the country from which they have been cut off for more than 30 years. They will also meet with Premier Menachem Begin and other Israeli leaders. Most of the visitors are from Alexandria.
A group of 106 American Jews arrived in Israel from Egypt via Sinai. They are members of an American Jewish Committee delegation that had been visiting Egypt, headed by AJ Committee president Richard Mooss. At their invitation, they were accompanied by an American diplomat, James Leonard, who is deputy to Ambassador Sol Linowitz, President Carter’s special envoy to the Middle East.
Leonard, who had accompanied Linowitz to Saudi Arabia over the weekend, was due to fly to Israel via Athens. But he accepted the AJ Committee’s invitation to join them on the overland trip because he had never seen the Suez Canal at the Sinai desert. He told Israeli reporters that he found the bus trip too long. But the Egyptian customs officials made only a perfunctory search of the group’s luggage as a gesture of good will.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian diplomatic team involved in the normalization process arrived in Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli officials. The two teams will establish eight binational committees to negotiate on civil aviation, land and see transportation, energy, communications, trade, agricultural cooperation, tourism and culture and religious matters.
A team of Israeli aviation experts, headed by Ehud Shiloh, Director General of the Transport Ministry, flew to Cairo today to start negotiations for a civil aviation agreement. That accord has been given priority as the Israelis would like to see civilian flights between Tel Aviv and Cairo begin as soon as possible. Israel may also propose the establishment of a Tel Aviv-Cairo-New York route to be flown by carriers of both countries.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
