Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Israelite
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry - Established 1925
Vol. XIIV Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, October 24, 1969 No. 43
Atlanta Voters Choose
Jewish Candid
L C
Ry Adolph Rosenberg
*5 uowa
Ma-ZOL Tov! Ma-ZOL Tov!
Atlanta has a Jewish mayor, miracle of miracles. And in
addition as though this were not enough. Atlanta has a
Black Vice Mayor.
deprived
Coney Island
Synagogue
Vandalized
NEW YORK (JTA) — The
president of the Brooklyn Board
of Rabbip, appealed this week to
Catholic and Protestant clergy
men to join him in condemning
vandalism against houses of wor
ship after a Coney Island syna
gogue was found desecrated.
Rabbi Kurt Klappholz made his
appeal after Morris Glassman,
president of Congregation Che-
vra Bigur Cholem,, reported that
the synagogue had been ruined.
Rabbi Mendel Epstein said
that he and a member of the
congregation, which has 30 regu
lar worshippers, most of them
elderly, found the vandalism
when they arrived for morning
services. It was the second time
that the synagogue had been
vandalized in a month. Dam
ages were estimated at thousands
of dollars.
Angry congregation members,
asserting that abandoned homes
in the neighborhood were hiding
places for drug addicts, muggers
and vandals, demanded that the
three mayoral candidates visit
the synagogue.
Rabbi Epstein said “we found
prayer books thrown all over
the place, and human excrement
smeared in the aisles.” He add
ed that the Torah Scroll and the
Ark in the sanctuary had been
left untouched. Police said they
were looking for a gang of six
Negroes and Purerto Rican
youths suspected of the vanda
lism. A patrolman was placed
on guard at the synagogue.
SWISS CASE
Israel Claims
Envoy Charges
“Unwarranted”
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The
Israel Government has informed
Switzerland that it considered
charges against i t s military
attache in Berne, Col. Zvi Allon,
to be “unwarranted” and ex
pressed regret that the Swiss
Government has seen fit to de
clare him persona non grata.
The Israelis statement was con
tained in a reply to a Swiss note
of Oct. 6 which accused Col.
Allon of involvement in the theft
of the jet engine plans from the
Sulzer works in Winterthur by
a Swiss national, Alfred Franken-
knecht.
According to a Ministry
spokesman, the Israeli reply de
nied any knowledge of activities
on the part of Embassy person
nel in Bern which could be con
strued as injurious to Swiss se
curity or national interests. It
emphasized that Israeli Embassy
personnel are required to respect
the national security of Switzer
land at all times.
Col. Allon was expelled from
Switzerland on charges that im
plicated him in the theft of Mi
rage III-S jet engines which Sul
zer manufacturers for the Swiss
Air Force on license from the
French firm of Marcel Dassault.
Mr. Frauenknecht, a Sulzer em
ploye, was arrested last month
for allegedly smuggling plans,
models and tooling instructions
for the engines to Israeli agents
in West Germany.
France Studying
Mirage' Refund
PARIS (JTA) — A French
ministerial committee is study
ing ways to refund an estimated
$60 million that Israel paid for
50 Mirage III supersonic jets that
were never delivered because of
the embargo imposed by former
President Charles de Gaulle af
ter the Six-Day War, it was
learned here this week.
Most observers here believe the
Government has already decided
in principle to keep the planes
and return the money to Israel.
The committee’s task is to de
vise a way of accomplishing this
without creating serious econm-
ic, diplomatic and military re
percussions, it was reported.
MIT’s Luria
Shares 1969
Nobel Prize
NEW YORK (JTA) — A Jew
ish microbiologist, Dr. Salvador
E. Luria of the Massachusetts In
stitute of Technology, was an
nounced this week as one of
three American scientists jointly
awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for their
discoveries in the field of virus
and viral diseases research. The
three scientists, who will share
a $73,000 cash prize, were hailed
by the selections committee in
Stockholm as having “set the
solid foundation on which mod
ern molecular biology rests.”
Dr. Luria. 57, was born in
Turin, Italy and studied medi
cine there before coming to the
United States in 1940. He did
research and teaching at Co
lumbia University, the Carne
gie Institute, the University of
Illinois and the University of
Indiana before joining the facul
ty at MIT, where he is Sedwick
Professor and head of microbiol
ogy. He is active in the anti-
Vietnam war movement.
Postpones Strauss
Music at Concert
TEL AVIV (JTA The Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra, bowing
to heavy pressure and threats of
demonstrations outside the Mann
Auditorium here, has indefinitely
“postponed” a performance of
Richard Strauss’ tone poem,
“Till Eulenspiegel” which was on
the program of its next concert.
The orchestra announced that it
would submit the controversy
to a high level public committee
for decision.
Bitter protests were mounted
against the work by organiza
tions of concentration camp sur
vivors and ghetto fighters on the
grounds that Strauss was an anti-
Semite and a Nazi-sympathizer.
They were joined by many con
cert subscribers and others.
Israeli writers, journalists and
intellectuals who usually abhor
censorship and take a sophistica
ted view of such matters have
privately advised the orchestra
management to drop the per
formance. Their argument was
that it would be “offensive” to
many Israelis and might reflect
unfavorably on the entire coun
try. No works of Richard
Strauss or of Richard Wagner,
also reputedly an anti-Semite,
have ever been performed in
Israel though compositions of
other German and Austrian com
posers have.
Combination of these two
leaders to pace the city into the
1970’s was causing many on
Wednesday to rejoice with a
“our cups runneth over’” feel
ing.
Not all however was hosan
nah’s. Pessimistic persons won
dered if it would be good for the
Jews.
But Sam Massell did not enter
the race as a Jew and he did
not campaign as a Jew.
He brought charges of “Anti-
Semitism” during the last few
days before the run-off, when
smear tactics were brought into
the campaign in behalf of his
opponent, Alderman Rodney
Cook, a competent and experi
enced alderman and legislator.
Cook maintained that these
tactics, leveled because of sol
icitation of funds for the Massell
campaign by his controversial
and mal-a-prop brother, were
brought without his knowledge
by the retiring mayor.
Traditionally, the last few
mayors of Atlanta have not en
dorsed a candidate but Mayor
Ivan Allen indirectly deviated
from this precedent when he
launched a “get-out-the-vote”
campaign as a response to the
small turn-out in .the general
election earlier this month and
later called for Massell’s with
drawal because of the solicita
tion matter.
Massell’s response however
was to stick in the race and
fight against the implications of
any wrong-doing and against the
obvious now alarmed “power
structure” which he bitterly
charged with “anti-Semitism”
because of the Cook endorse
ments.
“They do not want me to sit
in their social clubs and now
they do not want me to sit in
the mayor’s seat,” he charged.
It was too much for many
voters who now saw him in the
role of the underdog and de
terminedly switched support as
a blow to the power structure.
Both Atlanta daily papers had
endorsed his opponent in what
was a blatant orders-from-the-
top mandate. Liberals of the city
wondered whether the late Ralph
McGill would have permitted
the Constitution to be subjected
to this indignity.
In the final analysis, Massell
was swept into office with 61,-
558 votes, or 55.5 of the total
vote, through the good offices
of the Black voters. Negro pre
cincts almost down the line went
for Massell, who also carried a
good percent of the totals in
white precincts as well.
Lines were also drawn along
political lines since Cook is a
Republican and Massell a De
mocrat. Cook’s suave tv and
radio spots seemed prepared by
Madison avenue experts.
Massell’s material was geared
This strategy apparently work
ed.
Massell has apparently lived
in a political atmosphere all his
life. His father was Sam Massell
Sr., a veteran lawyer and not
Ben Massell, the noted builder
and philanthropist—the mayor-
elect’s uncle. The father was
prominent in political life. The
son was a political tour de force
even while a student at the Uni
versity of Georgia.
In' his very early thirties, he
ran and won for the presidency
of the Atlanta Aldermanic Board,
or vice mayor’s slot and against
all odds emerged in the run-off.
Four years later, he won the
same post, but this time running
away.
His service has been disting
uished by hard work and dyna
mism. He has especially been ac
tive in the arena of “human re
lations” and race improvement.
“Human relations,” he said in
a final tv enterview, remains
“the most critical area we must
face in this city.”
And how will this be a part
of his administration if elected,
the interviewer asked.
“By living with it, by prac
ticing it, by working for it,” came
the rejoiner.
Election of a Jewish mayor
seemed to indicate the exact
opposite of the swing of the pen
dulum from the religious bigoted
times of the Tom Watson-Leo
Frank era around fifty years
ago.
Is it good for the Jews to
have a Jewish mayor? Who
Continued on page 5
MAYOR-ELECT MASSELL, HIS WIFE DORIS, DAUGHTERS CINDY AND
MELANIE, AND SON STEPHEN.
Time Ripe for Reform - Conservative Merger?
BORIS SMOLAR
— Page 4