60,000 Attend Closing of Maccabiah Games in Israel

The nine-day Fourth International Maccabiah–the “Jewish Olympic Games”–closed here today with a festive ceremony as a huge crowd of 60,000 persons came to witness the final events and to hear Premier David Ben Gurion.

The Premier expressed the hope that at the next Maccabiah Jewish youth from the Soviet bloc nations would participate in the games. He urged Jewish athletes throughout the world to learn Hebrew, which he called the most important “tool” to unite the Jewish nation. The Premier’s words were greeted by thunderous applause,

Before the Premier spoke, folk dancing groups performed various Israeli and other dances, a police cavalry unit held exhibition hurdle races and various athletes gave individual exhibitions. An Israeli soccer team played an exhibition game against an all-star team representing different national contingents and all athletes participated in a colorful parade.

In the national soccer matches, Israel came out first, followed by South Africa, Britain and France. In the swimming events, the Israelis nosed out the United States by a score of 87 to 81. The Israeli men swimmers showed up poorly, ending up with a combined score of 42 to the United States’ 66. But the Israeli women swimmers scored 45 points against 15 for the American women, to place their team first.

In water polo, the South African team was first, scoring six wins over its nearest rival’s score of three. In basketball, the United States team won a tight game by a score of 25 to 23 over the Israeli quintet. The final Israel score was dropped into the basket in the last few seconds of the game. The Israeli team nosed out the American track and field team in the first two days of the international meet.

Last night Sidney Kiwitt of New York, a 22-year-old Jewish athlete, who broke a 15-year mark in the javelin throw won an Israel bond and a kiss from Miss Tel Aviv, winner of a local beauty contest, at a ceremony at ZOA House in Tel Aviv. The bond was awarded by Max Cohen of Chicago, who is an active bond campaign leader and head of a wine company in the United States. The kiss was a surprise to the youthful athlete who was cited for “cutstanding othletic performance.” He set the new javelin hurling mark at 59 metres.