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ON THE COVER

Teamster Connection

Jimmy Hoffa and his labor union's help to be cited by Israel.

Jimmy Hoffa, center, stands next to Golda Meir, his daughter Barbara and the Teamsters delegation to Israel during the 1956 journey.

Kimberly Lifton
Special to the Jewish News

ust mentioning the name Jimmy
Hoffa conjures up many images
of the legendary Teamsters
union president.
But it does not prompt conversations
about Jimmy Hoffa's valiant role in sup-
porting freedom fighters before Israel
won independence or about a 1956 mis-
sion to Israel — where Hoffa dedicated
an orphanage in Jerusalem and met with
Israel founding father David Ben-Gurion
and then-Minister of Labor Golda Meir.
The vital role Jimmy Hoffa and the
Teamsters played in fighting for Israel's
independence, and supporting the Jewish
state throughout his lifetime, is almost
unknown. Now that's about to change.

j

"Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters provided
critical support to a struggling Jewish state rising
from the ashes of the Holocaust."

- Stuart Davidson, American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center

Next month, the American Friends of
the Yitzhak Rabin Center will laud the
Hoffa-Israel connection when the orga-
nization gives its Israel Legacy Award to
Jimmy Hoffa's son, Teamsters General
President James P. "Jim" Hoffa, a labor
attorney from Troy.
"The visions of my father and those of
Yitzhak Rabin were strikingly similar in

many ways:' Jim Hoffa says. "They were
both vocal proponents of democracy and
social justice:'
Organizers expect the event will raise
$1.5 million. Proceeds will be earmarked
for completion of a 1,200-square-foot
museum next fall at the Rabin Center in
Tel Aviv to commemorate Israel's 60th
anniversary. During the February fes-

tivities, the Rabin
Center will dedicate
a permanent memo-
rial to James R. Hoffa
and the Teamsters at
the museum's War of
Independence exhibit.
"These honors
recognize the extraor- Stuart
dinary contributions
Davidson
of the Teamsters Union
and the entire Hoffa family to the birth,
survival and development of Israel at a
time virtually no one in the world thought
Israel would survive the combined armies
of her hostile neighbors:' says Stuart
Davidson, president for the American
Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center in
New York.

Teamster Connection on page A20

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January 24 • 2008

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