"Statehood Day" is a holiday that occurs on every 25 June in Slovenia. It commemorates the country's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Although the formal declaration of independence did not come until 26 June 1991, Statehood Day is considered to be June 25 since that was the date on which the initial acts regarding independence were passed and when Slovenia became independent.

A few days ago, we joined the Slovenian Ambassadoress, Her Excellency Alenka Suhadolnik, at her residence in Herzeliya Pituach here in Israel to commemorate the twenty third Statehood Day of Slovenia. In addition to the great company, the delicious food, the guests were entertained by a three musicians Slovenian's very own Gašper Bertoncelj on drums,
Alex Katz on piano, and Max Vater on bass.

Among the invited guests were Sovenia's Honorary Counsel to Israel, Mr. Eival Giladi and Professor Schectman who was a candidate for Presidency in Israel. Other esteemed guests included Mr. Raphael Gamzou, Deputy Director General, Head of Division of Cultural and Scientific Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yehudah Gidron of Europe 1 Department at the Ministry of foreign Affairs, Dr. Erez S. Garty, Editor in Chief, Davidson On-line from the Davidson Institute of Sceence Education, Weizman Institute of Science, foreign Ambassadors and business people as well as other dignitaries.

In her speech, Her Excellency described the good and fruitful ongoing economic, political and other relationship between her country and Israel. "The economic ties are getting stronger;Services, especially transportation and tourism, are showing great results;"

She also noted the great number of Israeli tourists that frequent her country, "the number of Israeli tourists to Slovenia is going up by 30 % per year in the last 2 consecutive years.And the absolute numbers of Israelis traveling to Slovenia are very close to the numbers of Israeli tourists to India.

And while both of our countries, India and Slovenia, are great, mine is a bit on the extra small side, so the numbers are even more impressive. "

The Slovenian Embassy initiated, organized and co-organized fifty two events in the past year.

The Ambassadoress mentioned two of them:

"The First Slovene – Israeli Day of Science and Innovation, with great outreach, was held at the beginning of the year in Ljubljana and I am truly pleased that the event's key note speaker, prof Dan Shechtman, is also celebrating with us today.

The second is X – Territorial: A semester long project by the students of the Department of Architecture of the WIZO Haifa Academy of Design and Education and the Faculty of Architecture of Ljubljana University which resulted in conceptual projects for future Emabassies - Slovenian Embassy in Israel : Israel Embassy in Slovenia. The exhibition was opened also at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem and is supposed to travel to Ljubljana."

 Photos Silvia Golan