Israel’s President Zalman Shazar culminated his week’s visit to the United States today with a full day of conferences with Jewish leaders at his Plaza Hotel suite here, then left for his return trip home tonight on an El Al plane.
Among his visitors on the last of his seven days in the U.S.A. were Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, of Boston, one of the outstanding Orthodox rabbis in the world, and delegations from the American Jewish Committee, the National Community Relations Advisory Council, the Poale Zion, the Hebrew PEN Club, and the Shomrim Society, the organization of Jewish members of the New York City police department.
Prior to his departure, President Shazar received one more gift from President Johnson. The U.S. President sent to Mr. Shazar a leatherbound folder containing a photograph of Israel and the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea, taken from a height of 470 miles above the earth by the American Tiros satellite. President Johnson autographed the photograph.
The meeting between President Shazar and Rabbi Soloveitchik, which lasted an hour and a half, was devoted chiefly to a discussion of Hassidism and of talmudic studies. President Shazar told his guest that one of his teachers in Talmud, nearly 30 years ago, was the late Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik, father of the present rabbi of Boston.
The American Jewish Committee group, composed of 10 leaders, was headed by Morris B. Abram and Dr. John Slawson, president and executive vice-president, respectively of the AJC. Aaron Goldman of Washington, and Isaiah Minkoff, national chairman and executive vice-chairman, respectively, of the NCRAC, headed 10 members of that Council who visited President Shazar.
President Shazar is due to arrive in Switzerland tomorrow morning. Because it will be the eve of Sabbath, he will remain in Zurich until Sunday, then fly home. He will have been absent from Israel since June 21, when he left for a tour of South America which took him on state visits to Uruguay, Chile and Brazil. Mrs. Shazar and six aides from Israel have been with President Shazar on the entire trip.
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