A marble commemorative plaque in honor of the memory of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel, was unveiled today in a ceremony at the Swiss Catholic University of Fribourg where he received his doctorate in 1899. Fifty years later, when Dr. Weizmann became Israel’s first President, the university honored him with a second diploma for his services to the Jewish people and to mankind as a scientist and a statesman.
Seventeen years later. Father Boehensque, the university rector, suggested to the Fribourg Jewish community that the university should have a permanent representation of the idea that the university had been honored to have Dr. Weizmann as a student. This suggestion prompted the community to arrange to offer the university a marble plaque executed in Israel. It bears the emblem of the State of Israel and an inscription in French: “Chaim Weizmann, 1832-1952, Doctor of Science at the University of Fribourg, 1899, First President of the State of Israel.”
Among those attending the ceremony were M. Tschudi, President of the Swiss Confederation; Eliahu Sasson, Israel Minister of Posts; Israeli Ambassador Mordecai Bentsur; Ephraim Haran, Israel’s permanent delegate to the United Nations office in Geneva; Dr. George Brunschvig, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities; Dr. G. Reigner, secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, representatives of the Swiss civil, religious and military authorities, representatives of the Jewish Agency, and many professors and pupils.
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