Newspaper Page Text
Women set annual
plea for Soviet Jews
The Southern
Dr. William Korey
Robert Lipshutz
VOL. LV
Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry
Our 55th Year
Atlanta, Georgia, FrMay, November 30, 1979
Appointee Klutznick
faces ‘heavy weather
The annual Women’s Plea for
Soviet Jewry rally is set for
Sunday, Dec. 9, from 3 to 5 p.m. at
the Temple, 1589 Peachtree Road.
The rally will focus on female
Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel,
under the theme of “Freedom, a
Shared Quest.”
Robert J. Lipshutz will be
honorary chairman, with
honorary co-chairwomen, Mrs.
Coretta Scott King and Ms. Vida
Goldgar.
Lipshutz recently returned to
Atlanta after serving nearly three
yean as counsel to the president. He
has actively participated in various
Jewish organizations in our
community, and will address the
issue of human rights.
Dr. William Korey, director of
the ITnai B’rith International
Council, will speak on the plight of
the refusniks. Dr. Korey is a
leading authority on human rights,
Soviet Jewry and the United
Nations, and is currently serving as
chairman of the Human Rights
Committee of U.N. non
governmental organizations.
The program will also include
performances by the Hebrew
Academy Youth Chorale and
young pianist Edward Zilberkant.
Edward came to this country with
his family in 1975 to escape
religious persecution. He now
aspires to a most promising
musical career in the free society
where he lives.
The Women’s Plea for Soviet
Jewry committee is also
sponsoring a community-wide
letter-writing campaign to help
promote the feelin*.of solid* way- -
between Jews in Atlanta and
refusniks in the Soviet Union.
For further information about the
Dec. 9 rally, call 636-8232.
by Joseph PolakofT
WASHINGTON (JTA)—At
age 72, Philip Klutznick is
embarking on what appears will be
the most critical period of his
extraordinary career as a lawyer,
real estate developer, financier,
government specialist and a leader
in Jewish communal organiza
tions.
Having earned millions in his
Chicago-based business enter
prises after leaving his law practice
in Omaha, the Kansas City native
had time for manifold services for
six presidents—two Republicans
and four Democrats—and led
both the B’nai B’rith and the
World Jewish Congress.
In becoming Secretary of
Comamoe—Senate confirmation
is certain—for President Carter, he
faces officially such problems as
weighing the Jackson-Vanik
Amendment’s relationship to
Soviet Jewish emigration and
administering the provisions of the
U.S. law against the Arab boycott
of American companies that do
business with Israel or have Jewish
managers.
In addition, having been named
to the Cabinet in an admittedly
political tactic in a tense
Presidential campaign, he will be
encountering what Vice President
Walter Mondale at an Israel Bond
rally here called “emotion-laden”
situations in Israeli-Arab-
American relations.
Klutznick is not resigning from
the WJCongress' presidency but is
taking “a leave of absence,”
indicating that when his
governmental functions are over
he will have the option of again
rmitaiag snttsibebn. -t
Klutznick, whose resourceful
ness . in business, finance or
government has never been
seriously questioned, has served
every president over the past 40
years with the exception of
Richard Nixon. A recognized
expert on wide-scale housing at
home and abroad, he served in
these capacities, as in other ways,
both for American presidents and
in the United Nations.
After advising Presidents
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry
Truman, he was named by Dwight
D. Eisenhower to the U.S.
delegation to the 12th U.N.
General Assembly. John F.
Kennedy chose him to be the U.S.
representative with the rank of
Ambassador to the U.N.
Economic and Social Council.
Lyndon Johnsoif gave him special
assignments, including missions to
Brazil and Panama.
Now under Carter, Klutznick is
plunging into heavy political
weather that was not on the
horizon during his previous
See Klutznick. page 21
Going ‘mime’way/
Eccentric Eisenberg comes home after
10 years on the road to ‘clown around’
by Faith Powell
Avner Eisenberg loves a rainy
day.
Had he not been caught in a
heavy downpour, today he might
be a pathologist or a chemist. If
Avner had had an umbrella,
perhaps he wouldn't have run for
the shelter of the theater building
on the Tulane University campus,
where an audition was going on.
Bv the time hedried off. Avner had
a bit part in the play and was on the
start of a new career.
Eisenberg is eccentric. He
doesn’t mind if you call him that,
either, because that’s how he bills
himself—Avner the Eccentric.
Living up to his stage name, Avner
did the following things during our
recent interview: He did card
tricks. He made bottle caps
disappear. He ate a paper napkin.
That he says is a big part of his act,
eating napkins. He has been
known to devour over 20 in one
hour and then have them reappear
intact.
Fans and curiosity seekers will
have a chance to see him do his
stuff at two Hebrew Academy
benefit performances at 7 p.m.,
and 9 p.m., Monday, Dec. I0. His
stuff, by the wav. includes more
than just paper ingestion: he isalso
a daring young man on the slack
rope, a juggler and a mime.
“I don’t like the word ’mime’
really," Avner said, “I am a clown.
But. I tell people that and
sometimes they ask, ‘Do you do
birthday parties?”' He doesn't.
Even though he is a hometown
boy. Avner. the son of Mickie
Eisenberg and the late David
Eisenberg, has not made an
Atlanta appearance in quite a
while.
Now 31 years old and a shade
under six feet, Avner has put in
over I0 years of study and
experience into his act. The most
impressive entry on his resume is
the years he spent at Ecole Jacques
Le Coq, in Paris. (Le Coq is
considered, along with Marcel
Marceau, one of the great modern
pantomimists).
“It was too good to be true,” he
remarked about his acceptance to
the exclusive school. When he
finished his Paris stay, Avner gave
himself five years to make a living
from his art. He has been doing
well Besides appearing at fairs,
festivals and nightclubs in America
and in Israel, Avner has put his
talent to work in special education
programs. He has worked with
emotionally disturbed children in
something he calls “mime therapy”
and has conducted workshops for
teachers of handicapped students.
Without his stage make-up
Avner looks more like a rabbinical
student than a clown. He thinks of
himself as a new age vaudevillian
and dreams of sailing away on a
floating theater barge towed by a
tugboat.
That may sound eccentric, but
what can you expect from
someone who used to be a fire
eater. That feat is no longer part of
the act. Why? “There are no old
fire eaters," he said. “It is a
dangeroqs. dangerous thing.”
Of course, he adds, audiences
want to see a little danger,
especially in street performers.
Avner is a veteran street
performer. In 1967 he took his act
on the road...literally. He and a
friend held impromptu sessions on
the sidewalk that always ended
with pass-the-hat. Getting arrested
for clowning around without a
beggar's license forced him
indoors.
During that time, Avner began
to juggle. In the beginning he
juggled fruit because, he said,
“That was all we had " Now he is
See Mime page 21
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