May Day, the international workers holiday, was celebrated in Tel Aviv today by one of the largest parades in the city’s history with close to 150,000 marchers from cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim all over Israel. The turn-out was triple the conservative estimate made by Histadrut which predicted 50,000 and considerably greater than the 100,000 anticipated by the police.
The hero of the day was Yeruham Meshel; the popular Secretary General of Histadrut. Also prominent among the marchers were the leaders of the opposition Labor Alignment-Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres, former Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Victor Shemtov of Mapam.
The massive demonstration had a distinctly political note. It was billed as a protest against the economic policies of the Likud government, specifically the measures taken by Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz. The marchers carried huge placards reading, “What is Good for the Worker is Good for Israel.”
The parade wound its way from the Yarkon River in north Tel Aviv to the municipal plaza in the center of town. Mayor Shlomo Lehat, a member of Likud, had refused permission to fly a red flag from City Hall. Nevertheless, the plaza itself was a sea of red flags and banners, mingling with the blue-and-white national colors.
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