Jews Throughout U.S. to Salute Israel Today; Truman Speaks at Ceremony

More than 200 communities throughout the United States will start today celebrations in honor of Israel’s 10th anniversary. The celebrations will be inaugurated with a ceremony at Independence Hall in Philadelphia at which former President Harry S. Truman will be the principal speaker.

The celebrations will underscore the community of interests which linked the United States and Israel. The ceremonies have been organized under the auspices of the American Committee for Israel’s Tenth Anniversary Celebration, of which Senator Herbert H. Lehman is the general chairman, whose membership of 500 comprises a distinguished cross section of American leadership of all faiths.

From Independence Hall, former President Truman, the first head of state to give recognition in 1948 to the newly created State of Israel, will exchange greetings with Prime Minister David Ben Gurion in a two-way book-up between the United States and Israel. The hook-up has been arranged by the Columbia Broadcasting Company.

More than 50, 000 people are expected to attend the Salute to Freedom celebration of Israel’s anniversary at the Polo Grounds in New York this Sunday. The 199th U.S. Army Band and the Band of the U. S. Navy Third District will have a place of honor at the “Salute to Freedom” program. The City of New York will be represented at the celebration by 200 members of the Police and Fire Departments and by the 80-piece band of the Department of Sanitation. Members of the Shomrim, society of Jewish policemen and the Naer Tomid, the Jewish firemen’s organization, will present the American and Israeli colors at the Polo Grounds.

Sundays program will be the biggest celebration of the tenth anniversary of Israel’s independence to be held in the United States, and will feature anniversary greetings by foremost leaders of the United States and Israel. Spokesmen for Israel at the Polo Grounds will be two of her outstanding leaders; symbolizing Israel’s historic achievements during her first decade. They will be General Moshe Dayan, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Army, who is flying here from Israel especially for the event and Abba Eban, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States.

Israel’s achievements in establishing “a free, orderly and stable society based on social justice and a respect for human and spiritual values, ” was hailed today, on the eve of Israel’s Tenth Anniversary, by the Rt. Rev. Monsignor John O’Grady, secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Charities, in a message addressed to former Senator Lehman.

Msgr. O’Grady expressed the view that Israel has become a “significant and important member of the community of nations, willing even in the midst of its own struggle for existence to aid and cooperate with others in important ways. ” He mentioned specifically Israel’s assistance to Ghana “whose government and peoples are being actively befriended by Israel.”