Kennedy Peace Forest
The Kennedy Peace Forest was dedicated before the memorial, with official dedication ceremonies taking place on 22 November 1964, on the first anniversary of Kennedy's assassination.
In June 1966 Jewish National Fund officials announced that 1.5 million trees had already been planted in the forest in preparation for the memorial's planned 4 July dedication ceremonies. The announcement noted that another 2 million trees had been planted in the adjoining "United States Freedom Forest," with a goal of planting 5.5 million trees in the two forests, as a number equal to the Jewish population of the United States. More than three million dollars in donations had been received at that point for the Kennedy Forest, from more than 100,000 donors.
In June 1968, the JNF announced it would plant 500,000 trees in the Kennedy Forest in memory of John F. Kennedy's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated on 6 June of that year. In 1999, JNF announced that trees would also be planted in memory of John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, all victims of a 16 July 1999 plane crash in the ocean off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
In April 1989 a forest fire (possibly the result of arson) destroyed approximately 8 acres (3.2 ha) and 3000 trees in the forest.
Read more about this topic: Yad Kennedy
Famous quotes containing the words kennedy, peace and/or forest:
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs 29:18.
President John F. Kennedy quoted this passage on the eve of his assassination in Dallas, Texas. Quoted in Theodore C. Sorenson, Kennedy, epilogue (1965)
“We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The moose will, perhaps, one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen as that, may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous animal with similar branching and leafy horns ... to be the inhabitant of such a forest as this!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)