Typescript with annotations on his trip to Israel.

JFK's report on his Congressional trip to Israel. John F. Kennedy's interest in Jewish Affairs in the U.S. and abroad started with a private visit to the Holy Land in 1939.

In October 1951, Kennedy, who was serving as Congressman from the 11th Congressional District in Massachusetts at the time, along with his brother Robert and sister Pat, joined a congressional delegation on a seven-week fact finding tour of the Middle and Far East. He was greatly impressed with what had been achieved by the new state of Israel since 1939, as he later commented in a speech in 1960:

'I returned in 1951 to see the grandeur of Israel... In 3 years this new state had opened its doors to 600,000 immigrants and refugees. Even while fighting for its own survival, Israel had given new hope to the persecuted and new dignity to the pattern of Jewish life. I left with the conviction that the United Nations may have conferred on Israel the credentials of nationhood; but its own idealism and courage, its own sacrifice and generosity, had earned the credentials of immortality.'

A highlight of his time in Jerusalem was having dinner with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. Kennedy kept a journal during this trip which obviously served as the basis for this report on the current state of Israel. Although Richard M. Nixon was the first sitting President to visit Israel, Kennedy was the first President of the United States to visit Israel prior to taking office.

Typescript with autograph annotations in the hand of JFK; folio; slightly toned, very small tear to top edges of pages, small creases to corners; 2 ll.