The Consulate General of Israel in New York, in cooperation with the Salute to Israel Parade, has initiated a banner campaign entitled, \u201cFaces of Israel.\u201d Beginning May 4th, in honor of Israel\u2019s 60th<\/SUP> birthday, banners will line New York\u2019s Fifth Avenue from 46th<\/SUP> to 97th<\/SUP> Streets. The portraits include Dao Rochvarger-Wong, who was born in Vietnam and arrived in Israel as a \u201cboat person.\u201d. The Vietnamese boat people were granted Israeli citizenship by Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Dao now represents Israel\u2019s Bank HaPoalim in Singapore. Another representative \u201cFace of Israel\u201d is Derrick Sharpe, the American-born captain of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team. Sharpe moved to Israel from Florida in 1993. He married an Israeli and soon became an Israeli citizen. Shasha Grishkov was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel with her parents. David Saranga, Israel\u2019s Consul for Media and Public Affairs, noted that the project\u2019s aim is to showcase Israel\u2019s socio-cultural variety. \u201cIsrael is a unified people who have come from many different countries and are of many ethnic backgrounds. Banners will be placed along New York\u2019s Fifth Avenue as part of the celebration of the annual Salute to Israel Parade June 1, 2008. As part of Israel’s 60th celebratory events, banners with images showing Israel’s diverse population will adorn along NYC. One of the Israelis to be featured on the banners will be Derrick Sharp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-27697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494513,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27697\/revisions\/494513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27697"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=27697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Each banner will feature the face of an Israeli citizen and be topped with a display of Israeli and American flags.<\/FONT>
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A talented singer, she became an audience favorite on \u201cA Star is Born,\u201d Israel\u2019s version of American Idol<\/I>. Cabra Kasai is a member of the \u201cIdan Raichel Project.\u201d She was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to Israel with her family. Other \u201cfaces\u201d in the campaign include Mirit Greenberg, Miss Israel 1997, Rania Jubran is an Arab-Israeli, a diplomat in Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry, and violinist Miri Ben Ari, who will be attending the June 1st<\/SUP> March.<\/FONT>
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Together, they have created the diverse society that is Israeli.\u201d<\/FONT>
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Please visit the Parade website at <\/FONT>www.SaluteToIsrael.com<\/U><\/FONT><\/A>.
High-resolution photos are available at <\/FONT>https:\/\/www.israelfm.org
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