The President will greet and address community membersKNN Staff Correspondent
Ministry of Information
KNN-Dimona
[Dimona – Aug 19, 2008] Israel’s President Shimon Peres will visit the Hebrew Israelite Community in Dimona Thursday, August 21, as part of a special tour of the Negev. The visit serves as a stage for a celebration of the President’s 84th birthday, marked August 2.
The community of 3,000 former African Americans is a featured stop in the President’s tour of the Negev Desert of town, which has become synonymous with the community members who arrived nearly 40 years ago, led by anointed spiritual leader, Ben Ammi Ben-Israel.
The President will greet community members, get an historical presentation chronicling the 4 decades of the Hebrew community’s existence in Israel, enjoy a performance by the choir and finally address community members. He will share the stage with Ben Ammi and Dimona mayor, Meir Cohen.
Over the years, Peres’ has been keen on developing the Negev, seeing it as key to the future strength of the state. In recent months Hebrew Community leaders have been meeting with Israel’s government officials putting finishing touches on plans to build a new settlement within the city of Dimona, to further showcase their unique lifestyle. The community hosts between 300 and 400 visitors each month from all over the world who come to partake of the pleasant atmosphere and their keys to healthy living, including a vegan-diet and natural food production, organic agriculture, and the most popular music groups in the country. The community has been proclaimed a “miracle in the desert” by the US Congress Human Rights Caucus and an “island of sanity,” by Israeli media.
Peres will also visit city hall, a local communications training center, and the Dimona library in the day-long excursion. At the end of the day, the town will host a mass birthday celebration for the famed octogenarian. “You can’t come to Dimona and not visit the Hebrew community,” a spokesman for the Dimona municipality said. “For people all over the world they have put the city on the map. They are the face of Dimona.”
For more information contact:
Yafah Baht Gavriel at 972 523 910 858
Prince Immanuel Ben-Yehuda at 972 524 886 926 or in WDC at (202) 360 4431