Nathaniel Saperstein, president of the National Council of Young Israel, has announced that the Council’s committee considering bids for its national banquet in March, 1981 has rejected the bid submitted by the New York Hilton.
“The parent organization, Hilton International, does not include the Hilton hotels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in its international listing,” Saperstein explained. This blatant decision is “clearly designed to curry favor with the radical Arab nations which refuse to even recognize Israel’s existence. Such a stand is totally unacceptable to us, and we have no alternative but to remove the New York Hilton from consideration.”
The National Council of Young Israel, an organization comprising more than 160 Orthodox synagogues in 14 states and Canada as well as 28 synagogues in Israel, traditionally holds its annual banquet in March which is attended by some 1200 people from across the United States, Canada, Mexico and Israel.
The Council’s action followed a report by Vida Goldgar in the Southern Israelite, of which she is editor and publisher, and in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on July 29 that Hilton International has omitted the-Jerusalem Hilton and the Tel Aviv Hilton from its recently published Middle East edition of “Business Travelers Guide.” Ms. Goldgar quoted Peter Mahler, Hilton International’s director of marketing for the Middle East, that the omissions are “a must for doing business in the Arab countries. It wouldn’t get into the countries otherwise.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
