Zionist Youth Race Chanukah Torch from Israel; N.Y. Mayor Receives Symbol

A Chanukah torch kindled at the gravesite of the Maccabees in Israel, was presented to Mayor John V. Lindsay in ceremonies outside the Garment Center Synagogue here this afternoon. The presentation was made by Miss Betty Balsam, 16, a member of the Zionist youth organization, Masada, who was the final runner in an 18-mile relay that brought the torch from Kennedy International Airport to mid-Manhattan. The youths who took part in the event, under the auspices of the Zionist Organization of America, wore blue and white uniforms. Each ran a distance of 250 yards with the torch that was lit in Israel yesterday by members of Maccabi Hatzair, the General Zionist youth movement.

The torchlight relay was the first in the United States to duplicate the traditional Chanukah relays in Israel where youths and sportsmen run torches from Modi’in, where the Maccabees are buried, to all parts of the country. A second torch relay will carry Chanukah lights from Israel to Boston and Springfield, Mass., and Manchester, N.H., tomorrow in an event sponsored by the New England region of the ZOA.

Present with Mayor Lindsay at the New York ceremony were Israel Consul-General Michael Arnon, Jacques Torczyner, president of the ZOA; and Bernard M. Rifkin, national ZOA youth chairman; also Rabbi Aron Dicter of the Garment Center Synagogue; George A. Saltzman, president of the Garment Center Congregation; and Victor Weinman, president of Masada.

In a brief address on the occasion, Mr. Torczyner said: “Whatever the religious or folklore rationalizations, Chanukah was born out of the Maccabean revolution against oppression and intolerance. Zionism is also a revolution against oppression and intolerance. Its continuing appeal is its very revolutionary nature.”