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News Briefs
Hadassah MDs in Cambodia
JERUSALEM—Three young Hadassah doctors are in the
medical team sent by Israel to Thailand’s Cambodian border to
work among the refugees. The Israeli team, consisting of six
doctors and four medical aides, went at the instigation of famous
peacemaker Abie Nathan, well-known in Israel for his radio Peace
Program relayed from a boat somewhere in the Mediterranean.
The medical team is also sponsored by the Israel Foreign Ministry,
the Ministry of Health, and the Israel Army.
NBC to cover sports politics
NEWARK, N.J. (JTA)—Political developments in the Soviet
Union will be reported by NBC-TV News during its coverage of the
Olympic Games in Moscow this summer, it was announced last
week by Jacqueline Levine, past president of the Metropolitan
New Jersey Conference on Soviet Jewry. Jane Pfeiffer, board
chairman of NBC. gave this assurance to Sam Kusumoto, president
of the New Jersey-based Minolta Corporation, after he wrote to
Ms. Pfeiffer, expressing his company’s concern that the games
“foster a wholesale violation of the rights of minorities."
Interns for peace get Ford grant
NEW YORK (JTA)—The Ford Foundation has awarded a
two-year $25,000 evaluative research grant to Interns for Peace, a
non-political organization training Jewish and Arab group
workers in Israel who develop joint projects between the two
communities, it was announced here by Rabbi Bruce Cohen, the
Interns for Peace program director who conceived the idea for the
interns in March, 1976. Cohen also announced that plans are now j
underway to create special programs for similar cooperative |
ventures between Arabs and Jews in Egypt.
Soviets to aid Nazi hunt
WASHINGTON—The Soviet Union has joined three of its !
Eastern European allies, Yugoslavia, Poland and Romania, in
agreeing to provide critical evidence and witnesses to help find and
deport Nazi war criminals in the United States, Attorney General
Benjamin Civiletti told a B’nai B’rith International audience.
Civiletti said Lev Smirnov, chairman of the Soviet Supreme
Court, “made a firm and explicit commitment” on behalf of the
Soviet government “to do whatever the United States felt was
necessary to locate, investigate, and deport proven participants in
the Nazi atrocities."
Auschwitz to be preserved
UNITED NATIONS (JTA) The Auschwitz concentration
camp, an infamous symbol of the Nazi atrocities in Wofld War II,
has been placed on the World Heritage List as a site to be preserved
for all mankind, it was disclosed by UNESCO officials here. The
camp site was one of more than 40 chosen by the U.N. agency.
Protestors attack Zionism
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Placards attacking "Zionism” were
among those carried by Iranian students who paraded in front of
the State Department last Friday demanding that the United
States return the Shah of Iran. In large green and red letters the
signs read “Zionism-Racism, Hyprocrisy, Expansionism," and
“Jews Our Brothers, Down With Zionism." At different times
during the course of their demonstration, the close to 1,000
demonstrators also shouted "Down with Zionism." They also
shouted “Long live the Soviet revolution."
Rival Hasidim battle in B’klyn
NEW YORK (JCNS)—Two rival groups of Hasidim fought
each other in a Brooklyn synagogue recently, and one man was hit
by a brick, when an argument broke out about Israeli government
policy.
As members of the Satmar and Belz sects lost their tempers,
they flew at each other, overturning the pulpit and smashing
windows and chandeliers.
When the police were called, they found “the Satmars pushing
the Belz,” a police spokesman said, adding: “There was a lot of
shouting and some damage to furniture."
The man who was hit with a brick was not badly hurt and went
home when peace had been restored."
to lli<‘ (Ml ilor
Comment on Arab “Takeover”
Editor:
Several months ago you carried
a special supplement to The
Southern Israelite; this was an
article entitled > “Takeover.” The
Secret Arab Strategy to buy
America by Hoag Levins and
reproduced from Expo Magazine.
Since I have recently moved to
Philadelphia (home of Expo
Magazine), I was fortunate enough
to hear Hoag Levins speak to a
group of young Jewish adults on
the same topic. He inspired us and
impressed upon us the depth to
which Arab dollar penetration has
already occured. In addition to the
use of their new-found money, the
Arabs are also using propaganda
campaigns to win support for their
cause, especially on university
campuses.
Ken Lucoff
The press must play an
important role in developing an
awareness, and an understanding
of these problems, especially
among Jews. I urge you to devote
more space to articles which
expound upon and explain the
Editor:
On Monday evening, Nov. 19,
the Atlanta Hillel and the Georgia
State Association of B’nai B’rith
Men and the Atlanta Council of
B’nai B’rith Women will bring to
Atlanta the 1979 Chassidic Folk
Festival.
I sincerely hope that the entire
community, especially parents and
children, will attend and rejoice in
this Jewish musical event.
Arab dollar penetration into our
society and possible alternatives
which we as Americans and as
Jews can take towards resolving or
halting the growth of this problem.
The 1979 Chassidic Folk
Festival reflects the type of major
Jewish cultural and educational
“events" that the Atlanta Hillel-
Federation brings to Atlanta: The
community's support and
participation will enable us to
continue to do so.
Rabbi Juda H. Mintz
Director
Atlanta Hillel-Federal ion
Sandi Stein Richtman
Bring the children
A dedicated journalist
by Wolf Blitzer
WASHINGTON—Ken Lucoff,
the ABC News field producer who
was among the 72 passengers killed
in the Western Airlines DC-10
crash in Mexico City on Oct. 31,
broke into journalism right after
the 1967 Six-Day War as an early
morning announcer for Israel
Radio's English-language news
service in Jerusalem.
Lucoff. who would have turned
32 in January, had dropped out of
the University of Wisconsin in
1966 to go to Israel as an 18-year-
old Habonim youth movement
kibbutz volunteer. He wound up
spending the next 10 years of his
life in Israel, where he learned
Hebrew fluently.
,He developed into a first-class
journalist as he moved from Israel
Radio to the Jerusalem Bureau of
United Press International and
then to the Tel,,Aviv Bureau of
N BC News, first as a radio reporter
but winding up as N BC’s youngest-
ever bureau chief.
Although based in Israel, Lucoff
was sent by NBC to cover a wide
range of stories (mostly
dangerous) in other parts of the
Middle East and Europe. He was
among a handful of foreign
correspondents in Cyprus during
the Turkish invasion. He covered
the 1972 Munich Olympics,
including the PLO's murder of 11
Israeli sportsmen.
In Israel, he was always with the
first group of reporters at every
terrorist incident. During the 1973
Yom Kippur War, hespenttimeon
both the Egyptian and Syrian
fronts.
I first met Lucoff in the King
David Hotel lobby in Jerusalem in
August 1975,justafewdays before
then Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger wound up another
successful round of shuttle
diplomacy with the signing of the
Sinai II Accord. He was busy
ordering camera crews around the
country; we only spoke briefly.
But our friendship blossomed
after he arrived in Washington a
year later to begin a new job as an
assignment editor in the
Washington Bureua of ABC News.
He told me that he had decided to
leave Israel and return to the
United States because he had
“forgotten what life was like here
and wanted to find out."
Lucoff, who never married
rented a small apartment in
Georgetown, not far from George
Washington University where he
enrolled in a Judaic Studies
program under the guidance of
Prof. David Altshuler. In Israel,
Lucoff never had the time to finish
his degree at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. Studying
part-time in Washington, he
graduated last June very proud
of his belated achievement.
At the same time, he began to
establish himself as a hard working
trouble-shooter for ABC News. He
served as ABC's simultaneous
translator of the addresses by
Prime Minister Menachem Begin
and Opposition Leader Shimon
Peres from Hebrew into English
following the November 1977
Knesset speech by Egyptian
President Sadat. The Associated
Press filed Lucoffs translation
around the world. His was clearly
considered superior to those of the
other two U.S. television
networks.
Two weeks after Sadat’s historic
journey to Jerusalem, Lucoff was
again sent back to Israel by ABC to
cover the joyful reactions there.
In 1978. after returning to
Washington, he was reassigned by
ABC to Chicago to help Max
Robinson establish a new midwest
anchor post for the evening news
telecast. From Chicago, however,
Lucoff was sent all over the
country. He also began covering
the turmoil in Latin America.
He twice flew to Nicaragua,
which was in the midst of a bloody
civil war. During his second trip
there, ABC correspondent Bill
Stewart was killed by a National
guardsman. It was Lucoff who
read a formal protest to President
Samoza and who later brought
Stewart's body back to the United
States.
Lucoff was clearly shaken by the
experience. Yet he was willing to
continue his dangerous assign
ments. He was aboard the ill-fated
Western Airlines plane to Mexico
City in order to connect with a
flight to El Salvador, where serious
fighting had erupted.
He coul^i have waited a few
hours to fly non-stop from
Chicago to Mexico City. But an
earlier flight from Los Angeles
would have brought him into
Mexico City sooner so he first flew
to Los Angeles to hook up with it
It was typical of his journalistic
dedication.
Lucoff always recognized the
dangers of his job, often joking
about them. Before leaving on
potentially risky assignments, he
would telephone friends in
Washington “just so someone will
know where I am."
l ucoff is survived by a brother
in Milwaukee, where he was buried
this week. Those of us who knew
him will always remember him as a
good friend, a good journalist and
a good Jew. He touched many
people's lives.
Page 5 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE November 16, 1979