Birthday Festivities for Israel
Nearly 35,000 people gathered at Rancho Park on Sunday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Israel’s independence.
Events at the 15th annual L.A. Jewish Festival included art depicting biblical times and modern-day life in Israel, live music, pony rides and a petting zoo for children, ethnic foods, 130 booths on various Jewish organizations, a mini-health fair for Tay-Sachs testing and folk dancing and singing.
During the anniversary ceremony, balloons were released from a huge replica of a birthday cake and hundreds of festival participants formed a human Star of David around the cake.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Mayor Tom Bradley, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, Sen. Pete Wilson, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Kitty Dukakis, wife of Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis, were among those attending.
Peres, who is in Los Angeles on a three-day visit, avoided discussing the current Palestinian uprisings on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and instead focused on the anniversary.
Peres told the crowd Israel is “proud to be affiliated with the greatest democratic country known to mankind” and that Israel would not be what it is without America and America would not be what it is without Israel.
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