The support of America’s 30,000,000 Negroes to Israel’s cause in the Middle East war was pledged here last night by A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leader in the Negro civil rights movement.
Mr. Randolph made the pledge in a speech at the Manhattan Center where 7,000 trade unionists attended a rally sponsored by the New York City Central Labor Council AFL-CIO. The rally was addressed by Ambassador Michael Comay, former head of Israel’s delegation to the United Nations, and now Special Adviser to the Foreign Minister, Mayor John V. Lindsay, and top leaders of the 1,200,000-member labor council.
Harry Van Arsdale, Jr., Council president, who presided, announced the launching of a $1,000,000 cash drive to help Histadrut maintain its health, education and welfare activities during the critical economic situation encompassing Israel. Ambassador Comay reported that he had just arrived from Israel and that the people there were fully confident of the outcome of the military confrontation with the Arabs. Mayor Lindsay declared that the war in the Middle East should be blamed on “the posturing of the Arab nations.” He added that “the United Nations should affirm at once its peacekeeping role in the Middle East.”
The Jewish Labor Committee pledged today “every effort to assist the people of Israel in their struggle for survival, security, and the preservation of their national identity,” and called upon President Johnson to “take steps now to bring a speedy and just end” to the war in the Middle East.
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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.
