Hundreds of members of Mahal, the Volunteers from Overseas, attended a special rally last night at which they heard a message from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion telling them that they were “privileged to participate in the most outstanding enterprise of our times and it is still in its beginning.”
The members, youngsters in their late teens or early twenties who have come to Israel for training in kibbutzim and in the army, heard reports of the earlier generation of Mahal members who took part in Israel’s War of Liberation. The earlier generation, they were told, gave–as the Prime Minister put it in his message–“an enterprise of great economic and military significance” to Israel.
He mentioned the Bedek enterprise, an Israeli airplane industry which is headed and manned by graduates of Mahal, Many of those participating in the rally expressed the intention of settling in Israel after completion of their training. Representatives of Mahal groups from various countries were received today by President Ben-Zvi who stressed the importance of the continuation in Israel of the Mahal spirit which, he said, had brought many Jews to Israel and which was continuing to do so.
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