The Israel Bond Organization paid tribute here to Frank E. Fitzsimmons, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The gala Thursday night, which celebrated Israel’s 25th anniversary and was attended by more than 2500 members of the Teamsters and affiliated unions. produced the unprecedented sale of $26 million of Israel Bonds.
Speakers included Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz; Labor Secretary Peter Brennan; Gov. William Milliken of Michigan; former U.S. Attorney General Richard Kliendienst; Herbert Stein, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Simcha Dinitz. The Israeli envoy substituted for Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban who is visiting the U.S. in behalf of the Bond Organization and was scheduled to address the celebration. Eban, who had an exhausting day of press briefings, meetings with Congressmen and State Department officials, and who earlier in the day addressed a Bond luncheon, was reported ill and could not attend.
Dinitz presented Israel’s Silver Anniversary Award to Fitzsimmons in recognition of his leadership in mobilizing American labor’s support for Israel’s economic development. The Teamster president visited Israel at the personal invitation of Premier Golda Meir last Dec. Upon his return he embarked on the intensive campaign which resulted in Israel Bond sales that broke all records for such activity on the part of a single organization. The Teamsters have for years been large purchasers of Israel Bonds.
Reviewing Israel’s 25 years of independence, Dinitz discussed the unresolved conflict in the Middle East and asserted that the strength of Israel was the first prerequisite for peace. Support for Israel through Israel Bonds, he emphasized, would help keep Israel strong and assure the attainment of peace.
In accepting the Israel Award, Fitzsimmons recalled his visit to Israel and said: “It was a golden opportunity for me to see how the people of Israel turned a wilderness into the promised land. While the struggles of the people of Israel are difficult to equate in exact terms to the struggles of the working people of America, there are definite parallels…which form the bond of labor, in America with the people of Israel…in common pursuit of freedom and justice.”
Carl Bernstein, who along with Bob Woodward was cited in the Pulitzer award to the Washington Post for breaking the Watergate scandal, is a former regional president of Aleph Zadik Aleph, the teenage boys component of B’nai B’rith. Bernstein who also won, with Woodward, the Sigma Deita Chi, Drew Pearson, and George Polk awards, was a member of the Lincoln Chapter of AZA of Silver Spring. Md., the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization announced.
Hafez Ismail is due in Parts Tuesday for meetings with President Georges Pompidou and other top government officials.
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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.
