Yom Haatzmaut: Ecuadorian Style

On the evening of May 4, the Israeli Ambassador to Ecuador, Itzhak Shefti, the entire Jewish community, many important government, military and economic leaders, and the general public participated in a ceremony marking Israel’s 28th anniversary. The Asociacion Israelita de Quito sponsored a program of speeches and classical music. The music was provided by a string quartet comprised of members of the Sinfonica Nacional.

Shefti told an overflow audience of 400 persons that “At the beginning of this new anniversary of our liberty we celebrate the victory of the Jewish spirit over each and every despotic and wicked element, past and present.” Referring to Israel’s attitude towards its Arab neighbors, he said that “we are seeking a continuous dialogue between countries that are separated by profound disparities. It is essential to cleanse the political atmosphere of our region, to stop proclamations that incite revenge, that lead to threats of a new war as the only outcome.”

Flanked on either side of the stage by pictures of Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann, Shefti stated that “the fight of the Jewish people is a grand historical mission” and that furthermore, “we don’t have a viewpoint of only 28 years but of centuries of sacrifice.”

The Ambassador was followed up by Humberto Vacas Gomez, sub-director of El Comercio, the country’s leading daily paper. Vacas Gomez recently returned from a visit to Israel, where he had been a guest of the Israeli government, meeting with his journalistic counterparts. What impressed him the most about the country, he said, was that “Jews had come from every country in the world, coming with many different habits, languages, levels of cultural achievement….Zionism unified them.”

The program closed with a presentation of poems, stories and dramatic readings by the students of the Albert Einstein school, started by the Jewish community in Quito more than three years ago to provide the opportunity of a Jewish education for their youngsters.