A group of 38 university faculty members and Christian clergymen left New York by air last night for a 29-day study tour of Israel organized under the auspices of the America-Israel Society.
Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin of Baltimore, Society president, said that the tour participants were from 18 states, two of them from Canada and 14 from states west of the Mississippi River. The clergymen represent most of the major Christian denominations in the United States. The educators are primarily in the field of the social and political sciences.
Mayor McKeldin said the purpose of the tour was “to promote a better understanding between Israel and America through a dialogue between American and Israeli scholars and religious leaders.” He added that the America-Israel Society was interested in creating such opportunities for the “objective study of Israel as a people and a nation, as well as in exploring the cultural, spiritual and democratic affinities which exist between the peoples of our two countries.”
The program will provide an extensive tour of Israel’s sites, including its religious shrines and archaeological places and intensive studies of Israel’s educational, sociological, scientific, political and religious institutions. The tour participants will be enrolled in a week-long seminar, especially arranged for them by the Hebrew University, on contemporary Israel in the perspective of history.
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