Newspaper Page Text
NCCJ focus
Count yourself iri
A 1927 front-page story in
the Sunday New York Times,
announcing the founding of the
National Conference of Chris
tians and Jews, focused on the
scope and aims of the new hu
man relations group, noting in
particular that the “Conference
is not merely a sentimental or
ganization formed to preach
brotherly love between Jews and
Christians.”
The “intergroup problem of
the nation is not a question of
Jews and non-Jew only,” said
the Times, rather, “it is Jewish,
Protestant, Catholic, Park Ave
nue, Long Island City, whites,
negroes, Italians, Irish, Russian,
Chinese.”
In short, it involves the many
peoples of pluralistic America.
One of the programs of the
NCCJ created to foster better
intergroup relations in America
was Brotherhood Week, spon
sored by the Conference since
1934, and renamed Brotherhood/
Sisterhood Week in the 1970s.
For 1985, in leading up to the
centennial of the Statue of Lib
erty, the NCCJ has selected the
theme “America Is Many, Count
Me In” to focus on the great
diversity of our citizenry.
America is composed of many
peoples, and it is a nation of
immigrants; yes, and everyone
does want to be “counted in.”
But as NCCJ President Jacque
line G. Wexler points out, there
is a dual meaning to the theme.
All Americans have a right to
expect equitable opportunity
when they call out, “count me
in,” according to President Wex-
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ler and the NCCJ. But every
citizen also must be prepared to
be “counted in” when challenged
to shoulder equitable responsi
bilities for community and coun
try.
President Wexler and the
NCCJ also emphasized that
“count me in,” speaks to our
entitlements as individual citi
zens, as well as what we are en
titled to expect from one another:
respect, civility, self reliance and
common sense.
“Count me in” challenges all
of us to reach for its deepest
meaning and most important
implications.
The American spirit, enriched
by our diverse immigrant heri
tage, is manifested by civic mor
ale and a sense of individual re
sponsibility for one’s self, one’s
community and one’s country.
America is indeed many and
it is yours. Count yourself in.
e Southern
Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry
'Since 1925'
Vol. LXI
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, February 15, 1985
No. 7
Reagan tells King Fahd
he won’t pressure Israel
by Joseph Polaltoff
TSI’s Washington coirespondent
WASHINGTON—President Rea
gan’s blunt statement to Saudi
Arabian King Fahd that the Arab
states should enter direct negotia
tions with Israel for a peace settle
ment was followed by a clear sug
gestion from the White House that
Palestinian Arabs abandon their
hostility and accept Israel’s exist
ence.
In rapid developments following
Fahd’s arrival at the White House
for his Five-day state visit to Wash
ington, Reagan affirmed he would
not seek to force Israel into discus
sions and that the basis for such
negotiations is United Nations Secur
ity Council Resolution 242. That
resolution, adopted in 1967 follow
ing The Six Day War calls lor
Arab recognition of Israel as a sov
ereign state and negotiations on
the extent of Israel’s withdrawal
from territories it occupied in that
conflict.
Reagan’s statement negated in
advance King Fahd’s position that
the time is right for the United
States to become “more vigorously”
involved in the peace process. In
his welcoming statement, after the
21-gun salute to the king on the
White House lawn, the president
said the security of Middle East
nations and Palestinian rights “can
and should be addressed in direct
negotiation.” A few hours later,
after the first of three Reagan-
Fahd meetings at the White House,
Secretary of State George Shultz
told the king at lunch in the State
Department that “history shows
there’s only one road” to “a just
and lasting peace between Israel
and all its Arab neighbors” and
that is “direct negotiations between
Israel and its Arab neighbors based
on the territory-for-peace formula”
of Resolution 242.
“Negotiations work,” Shultz told
the king. “Permanent arrangements
for peace have been established” in
the Israeli-Egyptian treaty. “And
we will not rest until the same can
be said for all the other areas
affected by the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
King Fahd’s call for the U.S. to
pressure Israel climaxed a cam
paign of many months by “moder
ate” Arab states including Egypt,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia that Wash
ington should make demands on
Israel to deal with the Palestinians
without first being recognized and
pursue Reagan’s initiative of 1982
expressing preference that the West
Bank and Gaza be put under Jor
dan’s control in exchange for rec
ognition of Israel.
A top administration official
pointed out, however, that the initi
ative was the U.S. position and not
a mandate of any country. It was,
he said, an outgrowth of Camp
David and based on 242. The plan,
he said, would throw on the nego
tiating table proposals that Israel
and her Arab neighbors might make
in direct negotiations, between them.
The official emphasized that U.S.
See Fahd, page 20.
Mengele ‘on trial’
by Gil Sedan
and
Hugh Orgel
JERUSALEM (JTA)—On the
final day of a three-day congress of
Holocaust survivors at the Yad Va-
shem memorial, the former chief of
Mossad, Israel’s secret service, dis
closed that its agents almost cap
tured Auschwitz death camp doc
tor Josef Mengele on three occa
sions since 1960, but narrowly
missed him each time.
Issar Harel said that in 1960,
when he went to Buenos Aires at
the head of the Israeli team which
captured Adolf Eichmann, he took
along dossiers of other Nazi war
criminals. One of them reported
Mengele to be living at a certain
address in downtown Buenos Aires.
Harel said he checked out the ad
dress to find an American family
living there. Mengele had moved
out only a few weeks earlier.
Mengele was spotted on at least
three occasions in the next few
years, one in Argentina and twice
in Paraguay. But each time he was
able to elude his would-be captors.
The congress, marking the 40th
anniversary of the liberation of
victims testify against 'Angel of Death’
The Moscowitch twins, Elizabeth (left) and Sarah, 59, answer questions of Zvi Perlow (right) during
trial-in-absentia of Dr. Josef Mengele. They are the only surviving dwarf twins who passed through Mengele’s
hands at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz by the Red Army, was
devoted to testimony of Mengele’s
brutal and inhumane medical ex
periments by Auschwitz survivors,
Jewish and non-Jewish, who en
dured them.
The personal testimony by wit
nesses who lived through Mengele’s
experiments was heard by a panel
that included Nazi-hunter Simon
Wiesenthal, Gideon Hausner, the
former Israeli attorney general who
prosecuted Eichmann, and Telford
Taylor, the chief American prose
cutor at the Nuremberg war crimes
trials.
The witnesses here confirmed
much of what is already well known
about Mengele. He was obsessed
with genetic research and his favor
ite “guinea pigs” were twins, per
sons born with inherited handicaps,
such as dwarfs, infants and Jews in
general.
He was also personally respon
sible for selecting which Auschwitz
inmates would go immediately to
the gas chambers, which to the
ilave labor battalions and which to
his “clinic.” He did this, when
every new transport of prisoners
arrived, by “calmly gesturing” with
the whip he always carried, the wit
nesses testified.
One witness, Vera Kriegel, told
how she and her 5-year-old twin
sister and their mother were kept in
a cage, injected with unknown drugs
and forced to give blood every day.
She said that once she saw, in Men
gele’s pathology laboratory, an en
tire shelf of eye balls extracted
from victims.
Another twin, Zerach Tauz, said
he and his brother were subjected
to minute measurements and med-
See Mengele, page 20.