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THE WAY IT LOOKS TO A WARRIOR—Two of Atlanta’s spiri
tual leaders and a communal figure eye enemy territory on one
of Israel’s armed carriers. Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, Rabbi Nlssim
Wemick and Ben Hyman mount an armed vehicle during their
recent fact-finding inspection of Israel’s problems.
Thpjontliern Israelite
A Weekly'flewspaper for Southern Jewry — Established 1925
Vol. XUV
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, February 7, 1969
No. 6
Police, Pickets Clash
Over NY Demonstration
Progress of Peace Awaits
Nebulous fc Big-4’ Conference
NEW YORK (JTA) — Anger
over the public hangings and
spy trials continued to reverber
ate here.
New York police clashed Sun
day with demonstrators protest
ing the hangings in front of
Iraq’s UN mission and arrested
four. The clash occurred while
a crowd estimated at 2,000 held
a protest rally and memorial ser
vice sponsored by the Young
Israel movement in Dag Ham-
marskjold Plaza. The incident
took place when police forcibly
removed a demonstrator from a
tree which he M>4 ritmbed to fix
a hangman’s noose. Three other
demonstrators were dragged
away when they sought to pre
vent the tree-climber’s arrest.
In Washington, Sen. Demo
cratic Majority leader Mike
Mansfield of Montana said today
that the hangings were “a repre
hensible act” but he feared there
was “nothing we can do.” Ap
pearing on the ABCTV program
“Issues and Answers,” Sen.
Mansfield said he was “glad
Israel has shown restraint” be
cause “I do not favor this tit-
for-tat policy for reprisal.”
Jews could be evacuated by
Air India from Baghdad, the
Indian Government was told by
Rep. Seymour Halpern, New
York Republican. In a statement,
Rep. Halpern, ranking Republi
can on the House sub-committee
on international finance, called
on India, the major beneficiary
of a huge foreign development
bill pending before his sub-com
mittee, to use its good offices
toward that end as Iraq’s diplo
matic representative in the U.S.
When Iraq severed relations
with the U.S. during the June,
1967 Arab-Israel war, it named
India to represent its interests
in Washington.
Rep. Halpern said that India,
which has received billions of
dollars in various form of U.S.
aid and loans, is the largest ben
eficiary of the proposed new
four-year U.S. commitment to
the International Development
Association pending before his
unit. The Association is a U.S.-
sponsored program to aid devel
oping nations. He said India
should “sl^thv a measure of com-
passion^r the Jews of Iraq” by
prevailing on Baghdad to permit
an emergency airlift evacuating
the estimated 2,500 remaining
Iraqi Jews.
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (JTA)
—The United Nations has not
been informed of any plans for
a Four Power meeting on the
Mideast situation but will be pre
pared to place all necessary fa
cilities at the disposal of the con
ference, a UN spokesman an
nounced.
Speculation of the UN head
quarters was that such a meeting
probably would not be held be
fore the middle of February, be
cause of the absence of Lord Car-
adon, the British Permanent Rep
resentative here. He was due to
return Feb. 12 from London.
With Secretary-General U
Thant in Ethiopia, there was no
comment here on Washington re
ports that the United States Na
tional Security Council had de
cided on American participation
in Four Power talks on the Mid
east within the framework of the
UN Security Council and terms
of reference of its Nov. 22, 1967
resolution. There was consider
able gratification here at the
stress in Washington reports on
the projected role of the UN and
the U. S. intention to channel ef
forts at a solution through the
UN.
A spokesman for the U. S.
Mission to the UN, when asked
about the Administration position
on Four Power talks, called press
reports “premature.” He declined
to explain further. Direct reports
from Washington did nothing to
clarify the situation.
General opinion, however, was
that President Nixon, after con
sulting over the weekend with
his top advisors in the National
Security Council, had decided to
accept the French proposal for
Four Power talks at the UN.
Mr. Nixon was said to have
instructed the State Department
to reply affirmatively to the
French proposal. He was also un
derstood to be preparing a cor
dial letter to President Gamal
Abdel Nasser, of Egypt, which
was seen as opening the way for
the resumption of diplomatic re
lations between Washington and
Cairo. Relations were severed by
Cairo during the June, 1967 Six-
Day War when Col. Nasser ac
cused the United States and Bri
tain of sending aircraft to help
Israel, a charge Nasser later re
tracted.
President Nixon’s acceptance
of the principle of Four Power
talks was viewed as a departure
from the stand of the Johnson
Continued on pape 5
10,000 British Protest
Soviet Anti-Semitism
LONDON (JTA) — Some
10,000 persons, mostly students,
marched to the Soviet Embassy
this week to protest Russian
anti-Semitism. A delegation
handed a petition to an Embassy
official who told them, "You
have been deceived about the
situation of Soviet Jews.”
Demonstration sponsors were
the Universities Committee for
Soviet Jews and the Inter-Uni
versity Federation. The demon
strators then marched to the
Iraqi Embassy to protest the ex
ecution of 14 persons, nine of
them Jews, on spy charges.
Prayers for the dead were re
cited there. (In Leeds some
3,000 attended an open air ser
vice for the Iraqi Jews.)
Immigrants
By JACK GELDBART
The Jewish Agency in Israel hopefully estimates
that 30,000 immigrants will enter the country in 1969.
This is an imposing number, but all too often numbers
are just that — statistics instead of p>eople. I prefer to
think of 30,000 immigrants as individual human beings,
people who love and are loved. As part of a recent UJA
mission I witnessed a small part of that 30,000 as they
arrived at Lod Airport near Tel Aviv.
Given permission to stand on the runway itself,
and watched over by several military guards who nerv
ously fingered their rifles, we waited in the dusk of a
typically swift Israeli twilight—all eyes on the dim, silvery
shape of the huge El A1 jet as it rolled toward us and
whined to a stop. The doors opened quickly and a pair
of trim, darkly beautiful stewardesses stepped smartly
out onto the exit ramp. Down below—without precon
ceived plan, but as one man—we began to sing:
Sholom alelchem,
Sholom aleichtm,
Sholom aleichem,
Sho-lom, sho-lom, sho-lom, alei-chem.
The stewardesses were somewhat taken aback but
as our volume grew stronger they clapped thir hands
in time to the rhythmn.- —
As our “sholoms” grew ever stronger, a huge peasant
woman in a dress of coarse brown cloth stepped out of
the plane. Her head was tightly bound in a babushka.
She shielded her eyes from the glare of lights, and stood
partially in the doorway, somewhat uncertain about
stopping out onto the ramp. Suddenly aware that the
song and clapping were meant for her, a huge smile
broke across her face. She wrapped each stewardess in a
bear hug, and then bounded down the ramp with her
Are People
arms spread wide, yelling, “Gott, Gott, Gott. Ich bin du.
I am here.” She fell to her knees at the bottom of the
ramp and pressed her lips to the concrete.
As other immigrants began to stream off the plane,
many of them ran toward a low wire fence behind us
where relatives and friends waited. Recognition was dif
ficult in the darkness, and there were importunate cries
of “Moishe,” “Rekele,” “Smuel,” until finally little groups
clumped together in weeping, laughing, joyful embrace.
There were many who had no relatives, and they stood
alone, staring blankly into spaoe. An exception was one
little man who stood holding his hand out as though to
speak, but no one stopped to listen to him. I asked him
in Yiddish, “Can I help you?” He turned to me eagerly,
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I must tell you something right
away.” I felt certain that he would embarrass me with
effusive thanks, and I had already prepared my Yid
dish to tell him that it was not necessary. Instead he said,
“I have a problem for you. In our town there was a
beautiful young man and his wife who were supposed
to come with us. They already had their papers, but at
the last minute there was trouble. The polioe came and
took his papers way. Why, I don’t know, but such
wonderful young people they are.” He shook his head
saidly for emphasis, and then looked at me quizzically,
his head cocked to one side. “I promised I would tell
someone. Can you do something?”
Could I do something? Could I do something? God,
how I wished I could. “Maybe later,” I said, pointing
him toward the reception center, “they are waiting for
you now. Maybe later we can think of something to do.”
As I walked back toward the plane a bearded man
and two little hollow eyed boys stepped out onto the
ramp. They were much too warmly dressed for the
Mr. Geldbart writes poignantly a boat Ida reaetlaM
on the 22-man delegation from Atlanta on '’Operation
Israel.”
mild night. The man seemed unaware of the commo
tion below him, staring instead into the night over our
heads. As he did so a shriek rang out behind us: "Yitz-
rak. Yitz—rak. Yitz—rak!” His eyes wildly searching
the darkness, he grabbed up the two boys, one under
each arm, leaped down the ramp and began running,
running across the runway to the low wire fence where
a woman stood, her arms extended to him. He ran full
force into the fence, clutching the woman and the two
boys in one tangled mass. Laughing and^brea thing heav
ily he finally stepped back, handing the two boys over
the fence to the outstretched arms of the woman; she
in turn handed to him a little, dark-eyed girls dressed in
white Sabbath best. He raised the child high over his
head and began to dance around and around In widening
circles, as if he intended to dance over the entire air
port. The little girl clung tightly to his neck and beard,
crying in a high-pitched little voice, “Papa, pa-pa.” The
woman stood silently, pressing the two boys tightly to
her side, her eyes fixed on the dim shape of the bearded,
dancing man. Again and again she said softly, “Mein
Yitzrak, mein liebe Yitzrak.” —i
There were others of course, but perhaps my point
is made. There are emotions which defy statistics or the
printed word. The members of our mission reacted to
these scenes almost as one man: we were genuinely moved,
in some cases to tears. Why, I am not really sure. Per
haps we identified these people with our own families,
safe and secure at home. But on one thing we all agreed:
Israel must receive these people—all at them who care
to come. We must help them to do this. We owe at least
that much to the six million who ne^er made it.