LOOKING BACK • Abie Nathan, Israel’s famed “peace pilot,” received the first Hadassah “Lovers of Peace” Award from Bernice S. Tannenbaum, national president, as Gladys Zales, dinner chairperson of Greenwich, Conn., looks on, during a New York dinner on March 23, 1980 to raise funds for the Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel.

Nathan, who organized Israel’s medical relief for Cambodians when he worked with volunteer Hadassah doctors in field hospitals there, was lauded for his actions in 1977 when, with special permission from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, he “broke the barriers between Egypt and Israel when he took his Peace Ship through the Suez Canal.”  He was also praised for his efforts during the Guatemala earthquake, and for activity in 1978, when he sailed his vessel into Beirut, Lebanon, carrying a cargo of medical supplies and an ambulance to assist victims of violence.  Though he was turned away, he sailed to Cyprus and successfully distributed the cargo among Lebanese refugees there.