WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Israel has marked the 70th anniversary of its first diplomatic outpost as a new nation with a re-enactment of that 1948 event in the same place — Warsaw, Poland.
Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari, flanked by other diplomats, hung the Israeli flag from a balcony of the historic Bristol Hotel in central Warsaw during a ceremony on Tuesday.
Just as in 1948, a small crowd gathered below applauded and sang the Israeli national anthem.
The modern state of Israel was created in 1948, and many of its early leaders and settlers were Jews from Poland — the European heartland of Polish Jewry before World War II.
The event comes as Poland and Israel work to repair ties following tensions sparked by a controversial Holocaust speech law early this year.
