Former Queen Juliana of The Netherlands will pay her first visit to Israel next month as the guest of the Jewish National Fund, accompanied by her husband, Prince Bernhard. They will arrive on October 14 for a week’s stay, it was announced Monday.
According to the JNF, Juliana will inaugurate a forest in Galilee in the name of her daughter, Queen Beatrix, the present sovereign, and will visit a forest planted years ago in her own name. She is also scheduled to dedicate a grove of trees at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in the names of two “righteous gentiles,” residents of a Dutch village who saved local Jews from the Nazis during World War II.
Juliana will plant a tree herself at Moshav Kadesh Barnca in the Negev, which has been adopted by the Dutch as their own special project. Although officials here emphasize that the visit by the royal couple will be a private one, they are scheduled to meet with President Chaim Herzog, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Mayor Teddy Kollck of Jerusalem.
Juliana and Bernhard are in their mid-seventies. Nevertheless, Bernhard plans to pilot the royal jet from Amsterdam to Ben Gurion Airport.
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