In ceremonies in City Hall, Mayor Wagner today issued a proclamation designating this Friday as Israel Independence Day.
Rabbi Irving Miller, chairman of the American Zionist Council, accepted the proclamation from the Mayor in behalf of all the Zionist organizations in the country. Mrs. Simcha Pratt, wife of Israel’s Consul General in New York, presented Mayor Wagner with blue cornflowers, symbolic of the blue and white in Israel’s flag. The gift to the Mayor heralded the annual flower distribution on New York’s streets this Friday.
Praising Israel on its tenth anniversary, the proclamation described it as “a bulwark of democracy for the free world against expansion by aggressive Soviet Communism.” Calling upon New Yorkers to celebrate the event “in harmony and brotherhood,” the Mayor’s proclamation declared: “Israel has established a free commonwealth in the Middle East dedicated to those ideals and values which are the cornerstone of our democracy.”
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