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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.