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P»l* 4 THE SOLTHERN ISRAELITE December 28, 1979
Vida Goldgar
The Southern Israelite
Thr Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry
Our 55th Year
________
Vida Goldgar
Editor and PuW»her
Faith Powell
Axtslant Editor
Linda Lincoln
Advertising Director
Mark Nicholas
Production Manager
Published every Friday by The Southern Israelite, Inc.
Second Class Postage paid al Atlanta, Go (ISSN 00388) (USPS- 776060)
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 77388, Atlanta, Georgia 30357
Location: 188 15th St., N.W. Phone: (404) 876-8248
Advertising rates available upon request.
Subscriptions: $15.00 - 1 year; $25.00 - 2 years
Member Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Religious News Service.
American Jewish Press Assn . Georgia Press Assn ; National Newspaper Assn.
Fear of terrorism
George McGovern, the senator from South Dakota who has
never been what you would call an endeared figure to the masses
of American Jewry; made an interesting comment the other day.
while on a visit to Israel.
McGovern, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, said that
the holding of American hostages in Iran "has given Americans a
better appreciation of the fear of terrorism that Israel has had for
30 years.. This situation is something new for us.. Now we know
how Israel feels about terrorism.”
Well, let us hope that Mr. McGovern is right in his assessment,
and that American officialdom and the public at large will now
understand a bit better why Israelis do not feel they can sit down
and talk "peace” with a Yasir Arafat, who still believes in rule by
terror rather than the principles of civilized society.
Does President Carter have anything to discuss with the
Ayatollah Khoumeini? Is there any action other than
unconditional release of the American hostages that will be
acceptable to the people of this country'.’
Only those who have respect for international law and human
rights can sit down to discuss terms—whether for the release of
hostages, or for the granting of autonomy to Palestinians. As long
as one side refuses to accept those conditions, there can be no
discussions.
Happy
New Year
JU0AJSM STARTS AiT
.m dooi^tep
The year
Just about this time last year, I made the second
biggest decision of my life. You read about it in early
January under the headline—“Southern Israelite
sold."
Despite my basic feeling that I
was making the right move, I don't
mind admitting now that there was
some trepidation about the
tremendous -responsibility I was
about to undertake.
Calls and notes that poured in
from many of you gave me a lot of
encouragement and reassurance in
those first weeks. Though I know I
neglected to acknowledge some (you have no idea how
hectic it was then), I was grateful for each one. Today
they hang in a "naches basket" on my office wall, a
daily reminder of your support.
So it has been a year...a year of good news and
bad.
The news media is often accused of thriving on bad
news. I disagree. Perhaps we tend to remember the
bad news. So just for this column —and since it is my
personal "good news" milestone, I leafed through the
past 51 issues of The Southern Israelite to review some
of the good things that happened in the last year.
One of the most exciting stories of the year had to
be the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and
Egypt. As we said then, we repeat now: The treaty
signing was a beginning; the implementation process
is lengthy; but the possibilities that exist were not
imagined before Sadat, Begin and Carter determined
that peace was possible. It still is.
There was good news, too. when the Soviets
decided last May to release Eduard Kuznetsov and
in review
Mark Dymshits from prison. Regrettably, too many
Jews and other dissidents remain, but there is hope.
Argentina let Jacobo Timerman go to Israel and the
freed editor's happiness was touching.
Announcement that despite their enormous
inflation rate and other economic woes, Israelis
donated over a million dollars to Cambodian relief,
was heartwarming and I hope opened a few more
checkbooks here.
On the local scene, women made news in Georgia
when Savannah’s Phyllis Kravitch became the first
Georgia woman to become a federal judge when she
was named to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,
and Beverly Lerner was named assistant rabbi at the
Temple in Atlanta, the first woman rabbi in the state.
The length of TSI’s annual Shavuot listing of
confirmands and religious school graduates is a
hopeful sign for the future of our young people.
Two Atlanta congregations, each just a few years
old, dedicated sites for future homes, and a third new
congregation passed the first year mark Atlanta's
Jewish community is growing stronger, as well as
larger.
A local and national story that started out on the
unhappy side is looking brighter. Thoughtful
members of the black and ihe Jewish communities are
pulling together to heal the rift that threatened long
standing cooperation after the Young-Lowery-
Jackson debacle
Those aren't all the good news stories. Not by a
long shot. But for starters, they might help start out
this new year on an optimistic note.
In the meantime, as I start my second year as
editor of your community newspaper, it is my wish
that the next 52 issues be full of good news, but it is my
promise to print all the news, ..sirm has and the tsuris.
Has Qaddafi changed?
by I.L. Kenen
Near East Report
Has Col. Muammar Qaddafi,
the unpredictable and frenetic
ruler of Libya, suddenly become a
“moderate," entitled to acceptance
by polite diplomatic society? The
question was raised recently after a
three-hour interview in which
Qaddafi declared that he wanted to
improve relations with the United
States.
Promising to continue
supplying oil to the United States.
Qaddafi said he had assurances
that the United States would
assume a "more neutral posture” in
the Arab-lsraeli conflict, a
statement swiftly disowned by
Washington.
What was most startling about
Qaddafi's posture, stimulating the
conclusion that the Libyan leader
had reformed, was the disclosure
that he was opposed to the PLO
and that he was withholding
promised financial support from
that organization.
Carl T. Rowan was quick to
welcome Qaddafi and to call for an
immediate change in U.S. policy
despite the mob attack on the U.S.
embassy just a fortnight ago. In his
syndicated column in The
Washington Star. Rowan noted
our $6-billion-a-year trade deficit
with Libya and asked why the
United States refuses to sell Libya
Boeing 747 jet-liners, flatbed
trucks, buses and other items and
why we refuse to deliver eight C-
130 transports that Libya bought
and paid for years ago.
Flexibility is a virtue in
diplomacy, but Rowan might have
been more prudent to wait until all
the facts were available. Those
who are not afflicted with amnesia
cannot so swiftly forget Qaddafi's
record
A recent column by William
Raspberry expressed understand
ing for the motivations of Jesse
Jackson and Walter Fauntroy
when they met Yasir Arafat.
However. Raspberry wrote that he
was "outraged when Hosea
Williams, head of the Atlanta
chapter of the SCLC, presented
Quaddafi with a Martin Luther
King Jr. peace medal."
“Williams has profaned
America’s foremost black hero,”
Raspberry wrote as he recalled
that Qaddafi “had sent troops to
aid madman Idi Amin” in U.S.
planes, that he had been “accused
of masterminding a plot to
assassinate Anwar Sadat,” that he
had made his country “a haven for
assassins and hijackers.” and had
supplied arms and sanctuary to
terrorists from Belfast to Beirut."
Rowan would have been wiser
to withhold his premature welcome
to Qaddafi. For within two days,,
dispatches from Beirut published
in The Washington Post revealed
that Qaddafi was still a merchant
of violence. It was oversimplifica
tion to sav that he had broken with
the PLO. He had denied funds to
the central PLO exchecquer run by
Arafat but has financed the more
radical Palestinian groups,
including the PFLP of George
Habash. which adamantly spurn
any kind of settlement with Israel
and are committed to its
destruction Earlier this month,
Qaddafi called on the PLO to blow
up ships to block the Suez Canal in
order to retaliate against Sadat's
peace treaty.
Center to study aging
REHOVOT—With the percentage of elderly people rising in
all Western countries, including Israel, the Weizmann Institute of
Science has decided to increase its efforts to improve the quality of
life of these people by establishing a Center for the Biology of the
Aging, it was announced recently by the President of the Institute,
Prof. Michael Sela.
The new Center, to be headed by Prof. David Danon. will
coordinate the work being done on the subject in the Institute's
Faculties of Biology, Biophysics-Biochemistry and Chemistry, and
will initiate new research projects in this important sphere.