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The Southern Israelite
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry - Established 1925
Vol. XLVII Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, July 7, 1972 One Section—8 Pages No. 27
Allan Admits Mistake
In Lebanon liombing
JERUSALEM (JTA) Acting
Premier Yigal Allon told the
Knesset that he considered it
his moral and political duty to
have disclosed that Israeli
planes mistakenly bombed Has-
biyeh village in southern Leb
anon during an air strike against
terrorist strongholds in the re
gion.
He said that if the Lebanese
government agreed to negotiate
about the border tensions, the
question of compensation for the
villagers could come up for
consideration. Allon spoke in
reply to sharp criticism levelled
against him in some quarters
over his disclosure of the bomb
ing error in a speech he made
at Kibbutz Ein Herod June 25.
Three opposition factions—
Gahal, the State List and the
Free Center—filed urgent mo
tions in the Knesset claiming
that Allon’s disclosure violated
security and was especially un
warranted at a time when
Israel’s representatives at the
UN were trying to avoid cen
sure by the Security Council.
Deputy Premier Allon, who
headed the government while
Premier Golda Meir was attend
ing the Socialist International
meeting in Vienna, explained to
the Knesset that when it be
came clear beyond all possible
doubt what had occurred, he
considered it his duty by virtue
of his position as Acting Pre
mier to state the truth of the
mishap and to make public
Israel's grief over the death of
innocent Lebanese civilians.
Foreign Minister Abba Eban
disclosed he had independently
informed the US Ambassador of
the bombing mishap. He said
Allon’s public disclosure of the
incident had not been previ
ously coordinated with him but
he added that the Acting Pre
mier had the right to make any
statement he saw fit, especially
if it is in line with Israel’s pol
icy of telling the truth at home
and abroad. Eban said the an
nouncement that Hasbiyeh was
bombed by mistake was made
to reassure Israel that its poli
cies regarding Lebanon have not
changed and to let the Lebanese
population know that Israel’s
conflict is with the terrorists,
not with peaceful villagers.
Allon was the first Israeli
official to disclose the error
publicly and his remarks at a
memorial meeting for the late
Labor Party leader Itzhak Tab-
enkin raised eyebrows here and
led to attacks on the Deputy
Premier in some quarters.
Others, however, including
Health Minister Victor Shemtov
of the Mapam faction, lauded
Allon for his courage in admit
ting the mistake.
Floods Leave Extensive Jewish
Losses; Groups Active in Relief
NEW YORK (JTA)— Jewish
organizations, centers and in
dividuals were rallying to aid
synagogues and Jewish busi
nesses “wiped out” in Harris
burg and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., by
the floods in the wake of tropi
cal storm Agnes.
Reports reaching Jewish
organizations here told of con
siderable damage to Jewish
facilities. A JTA telephone sur
vey of the stricken areas could
not reach the hardest-hit com
munities because communica
tions were out. One synagogue
said to have had most or all of
its possessions washed away is
Kesher Israel Congregation in
Harrisburg, led by Rabbi David
Silver, uncle of Judy Silver
Shapiro, the Cincinnati socijal
TEP Alumni Will Welcome
National at July 22 Dinner
On Saturday evening, July 22, the Atlanta Alumni Club of Tau
Epsilon Phi will formally and officially welcome the National
Executive Offices, and Sid Suntag, long time executive secretary,
to Atlanta with a gala cocktail party and dinner at the Atlanta
Cabana Motor Inn.
Bill Waronker, Atlanta Alumni president, noted that fratern
ity headquarters, which had been located in New York City for more
than sixty years, recently relocated in Atlanta, and maintains a
suite of offices at 1801 Piedmont Rd., N. E
In conjunction with this affair, the Alumni Club has invited
the executive board of the National Grand Council to hold its
summer meeting over the July 21 weekend.
Members of the board from all over the country, headed by
National President Sanders D. Heller of Gouverneur, N. Y., will
meet in the new headquarters of the fraternity, and will be hon
ored at the reception and dinner on Saturday evening.
The committee of the Alumni Club planning the affair, are:
Harris Jacobs, Hill Feinberg, Bob Dubrof, Leonard Seligman, Larry
Liebross, Tony Center, Howie Hyman, and Jan Jackson.
All TEP men are welcome. Reservations can be made by calling
Bill Waronker, office 524-3888 — home 266-8676. Cost per couple,
including open bar cocktail party, full course banquet is $15.00.
worker who recently married
activist Gavriel Shapiro in
Moscow. Rabbi Silver, is a son
of the late Rabbi Eliezer L.
Silver, who was born in Russia
and served congregations in
Harrisburg, Springfield, Mass.,
and Cincinnati.
Other synagogues seriously
damaged, according to Rabbi
Henry Siegman, executive vice-
president of the Synagogue
Council of America, are (Ortho
helicopter to fly a delegation to
the stricken area.
Wilkes-Barre’s Temple Israel
has been “entirely washed out,”
with its possessions “just about
entirely destroyed,” it was re
ported by Dr. Morton Siegel,
executive director of the United
Synagogue of America. He said
he had learned “in a rounda
bout way” that most synagogues
in the area had been spared, but
that many Jewish 'homes were
NEW YORK (JTA)—Students affiliated with the B’nai B’rith
Hillel Foundation at State University in Buffalo and campers at
Ramah Camp in the Poconos were in the vanguard of groups aiding
victims of the floods that devastated parts of upper New York
State and Pennsylvania in the wake of tropical storm Agnes.
Camp Ramah, one of a network of summer camps maintained
by the Conservative movement in American Judaism, sent sub
stantial food supplies to the Scran ton-Wilkes-Barre area. It also
provided temporary living quarters for the parents of campers
whose homes in the stricken area were flooded.
The camp sent clean-up crews consisting of adults and young
sters aged 10-18 to assist in cleaning synagogues in the region
damaged by flood waters.
The HUM House on the Buffalo campus served as a drop-off
point for food, clothing and medical snppUes donated for flood vic
tims in upper New York State.
dox) Congregation Ohav Zedek
in Wilkes-Barre, led by Rabbi
Abraham Barr as, and (Conserv
ative) Temple Beth-El in Har
risburg, headed by Rabbi Jeff
rey Wohlberg.
Rabbi Siegman said the SCA
was asking synagogues across
the country to send prayer
books and artifacts to these and
other badly hit Orthodox and
Conservative temples, as well
as the Reform Temple B’nai
B’rith in Wilkes-Barre, led by
Rabbi Arnold Shevlin.
Rabbi Siegman added that
“very extensive damage” had
been caused to the Jewish cem
etery and to the United Hebrew
Institute Ben Zion Academy in
•Wilkes-Barre. He said the SCA >
was in contact with the Office
of Emergency Planning in
Washington, and was seeking a
federal or local governmental
“washed out,” including that of
Rabbi Joshua Adler of Congre
gation Chizuk Emuna.
Similarly struck, said Dr.
Siegel, was the Solomon Schech-
ter Day School in Chevy Chase,
Md. In Pittsburgh and upstate
New York, he added, no serious
damage to Jewish property has
been reported. Rabbi Wolfe
Kelman, executive vice-presi
dent of the Rabbinical Assem
bly of America, said Rabbi
Adler had turned his temple
into a temporary home for
homeless Jewish families and
had been feeding hundreds of
evacuees with bar mitzva sup
plies. Possessions floated away
and there is no flood insurance,
Rabbi Kelman said. He repor
ted that Dr. Herbert Seltzer,
head of the Daughters of Jacob
Continued on page 4
Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian Jews Settle in Brooklyn
By Ben G. Frank
There is a new browri-brick
building in Brooklyn’s East
Seventh Street. And if one looks
closely at the names on the
directory inside, one notices
Arabic-sounding names. Only a
number of these families are
not only Jewish, but they are
Lebanese, too. They are part of
several hundred Lebanese Jews
who have emigrated to the US
in the last five years and who
have settled, like hundreds of
Egyptian Jews, and thousands
of Syrian Jews before them, in
the Flatbush section of Brook
lyn.
At the start of the Six-Day
War, a war in which Lebanon
stayed out, there were 6000 Jews
in Lebanon. They did not ex
perience the continuing perse
cution to which the Syrian Jew
ish community was, and is still,
subjected. The Lebanese Jews
moved freely and had basic
democratic rights, including the
right to emigrate. In point of
fact, even today, Lebanese Jews,
who settled in the US, Canada
and Mexico, often travel back to
Lebanon on visits and even
business trips.
After the Six-Day War, of
course, the bulk of the Leban
ese Jewish community pulled
out. “We just did not feel at
home, anymore,” said one who
observed that there just was too
much tension and pressure in
the air in Lebanon. Twenty-five
hundred Lebanese Jews went to
Israel and 1500 came to the US,
Canada and Mexico. There are
still slightly more than 1500
Jews in Lebanon. Most of them
live in Beirut, and those who
remained are still engaged in
the export-import business.
The Lebanese Jews who
arrived in Brooklyn went to
work in the same business field.
In fact, many were employed
by Syrian Jews who for years
have been engaged in the ex-
port-import business, wholesale
stores and textiles. The Leban
ese and Syrian Jews get along
very well together in business,
and in reality, the Lebanese,
Syrian and Egyptian Jews are
all excellent businessmen—ask
the people who deal with them!
Some say that in the long run,
the Lebanese engage more in
export-imports and in interna
tional trade than in retail out
lets.
The Lebanese Jews also have
adjusted quite well to the
Syrian community and they be
long to that famous synagogue
of the Syrian Jewish commun
ity, Shaare Zion. Rabbi Abra
ham B. Hecht of Shaare Zion
noted that the Lebanese "blen
ded very beautifully” with the
Syrians in the synagogue. The
Lebanese and Syrians are almost
like kinsmen, he pointed out,
adding that many Lebanese
Jews pride themselves on the
fact that their parents and many
relatives actually came from
Syria.
Though a small group, the
Lebanese are close knit. They
stick together. Sami Saayed, 24,
of Flatbush, said in an interview
that he and his friends often
visit each other. They hold
parties. Frequently, on Sunday
mornings. Lebanese Jews gather
at Mansoura’s pastry shop at
515 Kings Highway for brunch
and partake of that excellent
Mid-East cooking of Isaac Man-
soura, himself an Egyptian Jew,
who makes Egyptian and Syrian
pastry, plus those Middle East
ern delicacies, felafel and
humus.
Here, too, everyone knows
everybody else. After all, in
Lebanon, even with 6000 Jews
before 1967, everyone knew
everybody else; and if you
didn’t know that Jew, you knew
from which family he came.
In the US, in proportion, there
are more Lebanese young peo
ple and single persons. This is
because, in any country where
there is tension, the young and
single ones are usually the first
to leave. Thus it was with the
Lebanese Jewish community.
Many sons and daughters came
to the US and Canada, while
their parents later settled in
Israel Mast Lebanese Jews are
Sephardim, although there was
an Ashkenazi synagogue in
Lebanon according to Mr.
Saayed. The Lebanese Jews do
attend synagogue services, and
Rabbi Hecht termed them a
religious and cultured group.
The Lebanese Jewish com
munity here, too, is concerned
with the persecution of Syrian
Jews by the Syrian government
and they are quite worried
about Albert Elia, the leader of
the Lebanese Jewish community
who" was kidnapped last Sep
tember on his way to the syna
gogue in Beirut and taken across
the border by Syrian agents.
The Syrian authorities are be
lieved to be holding Mr. Elia.
Lebanese Jews join with men
of good will all over the world
in calling on the nations of the
world to demand that the
Syrians release all those whom
they are holding and let Syrian
Jews leave just as Lebanese
Jews are permitted to do. But
meanwhile, Lebanese Jews are
getting settled both in Israel and
in the West—in Canada, Mexico
and the US. As for Lebanon,
they are not homesick. They
know Jewish life there, despite
the trips back home, is over.
Copyright 1972, JTA