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News Briefs
Israeli prices rise in November
TEL AVIV (JTA)—The consumer price index rose by 0.5
percent during November—the lowest monthly cost of living
increase in nine years, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
The increase was due to higher costs of clothing and footwear,
health costs, and house up-keep, including municipal rates, offset
by seasonal reductions in the price of fruit and vegetables.
Since the start of the latest phase in the new economic plan,
annual inflation is now running at 45 percent—the lowest rate of
inflation for some eight years.
Bronfman meets with Jaruzelski
PARIS (JTA)—World Jewish Congress president Edgar
Bronfman held a three-hour meeting Dec. 12 with Polish president
Wojciech Jaruzelski, with whom he reviewed all outstanding
problems of mutual interest. Bronfman remained in Poland over
the weekend to visit the site of the former Auschwitz concentration
camp.
Polish officials said that the meeting had been friendly and sincere.
Thursday’s meeting was the second of this year.
Heuss Prize goes to Nachmann
BONN.—Werner Nachmann, president of the Central Council
of Jews in Germany, will receive the 1986 Theodor Heuss Prize for
his decades of “devoted and patient efforts on behalf of Jewish-
German reconciliation,” according to the Theodor Heuss Foundation.
Foundation head and Bundestag deputy Hildegard Hamm-Brucher
cited Nachmann’s exemplary work in overcoming difficulties at
reintegration encountered by Jews returning to Germany.
With this award, she said, the Foundation wanted to express
the deep gratitude Germans owe Nachmann for his contribution to
the process of reconciliation.
Jewish-Moroccan group formed
PARIS (JTA)—An international organization of-Jews of
Moroccan-Jewish communities in a dozen countries, including
Israel and Morocco, has been formed.
The organization will have a permanent secretariat in Paris and
regional offices in countries where there are sizeable communities
of Moroccan Jews. The founding meeting was held here under the
chairmanship of David Amar, president of the Moroccan Jewish
community in Casablanca. He chaired the World Conference of
Moroccan Jews held in Montreal earlier this year.
Nazi, Larouche are linked
NEW YORK (JTA)—A Nazi rocket scientist, provided entry
into this country under a program known as Operation Paperclip,
and who later became a central figure in the American space
program, had been a collaborator with extremist former presidential
candidate Lyndon Larouche, according to a recently published
book on Nazi war criminals in the U.S.
The book identifies the late Dr. Krafft Ehricke, who worked
at one time at the Dora-Nordhausen slave labor rocket factory
complex during the Holocaust, as having been an editor and
contributor for nearly five years of Fusion Magazine, a publication
of the Fusion Energy Foundation. Larouche has been identified in
a recent disposition as director of the Foundation.
Israeli exports up 8 percent
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Export figures for the first I 1 months
of this year showed a rise of eight percent over the same period in
1984, according to official statistics. Industrial exports for the
period January through November totalled $3.719 billion. Diamonds
were up 21 percent, totallingSl. 161 billion. Agricultural exports
fell, however, by eight percent. Citrus sales were the chief causes,
they dropped by 57 percent.
Mice drop out; owls howl
Ay IY (jjA)—Mice on the Golan Heights are committing
suicide in large numbers by leaping to their deaths off high cliffs.
Scientists explain the phenomenon as an instinctive response to
over-population.
The sudden shortage of mice is being felt by the Golan Heights
owl population, which depends for its food on a plentiful supply of
rodents.
v__
Christmas volunteers aid Jewish Home
Editor:
Holidays at the Jewish Home
require the same levels of personal
attention for our residents as on
any other day.
Members of the Jewish Home’s
Family Council join with volunteers
from B’nai B’rith Gate City Lodge
to reduce the numbers of Christian
staff members who must work on
Christmas Day. Because thesejobs
are essential, volunteers take the
place of nursing home personnel
who work with residents in non
nursing capacities, in the kitchen,
and in janitorial services.
The Family Council, an organi
zation comprised of family members
of Jewish Home residents, sponsored
this program for the first time last
year. The Jewish community’s
response to requests for volunteer
service on Christmas Day was
heartwarming.
We want the world to know how
much we respect the fine work our
staff members do all year long and
this Christmas Day program is one
more way of exhibiting that respect.
Christmas Day at the Jewish
H ome is truly an example of respect,
of caring and of brotherhood—
and a way of sharing the special
seasonal feeling of good will to all
men.
Susan Mil berg,
Director of Community Relations
A look into the new year
by Boris Smolar
Editor-in-chief emeritus, JTA
The year 1986 will be a busy
year for American Jewish organiza
tions, especially on the following
fronts:
• The fight for unhampered
Jewish emigration from the Soviet
Union will be conducted with more
intensity since Mikhail Gorbachev,
the Soviet leader, did apparently
not agree with President Reagan’s
request to open the gates of the
U.S.S.R. for Jewish emigration on
a large scale in the spirit of the
Helsinki act on human rights, which
the Soviet government signed in
1975.
• Intensive action of Jewish
organizations against Reagan’s
proposed sale of American arms—
including advanced planes and
missiles—to Jordan. Congress post
poned decision on this proposal
until March 1 to await response
from King Hussein as to whether
he is willing to negotiate peace with
Israel directly, without the partici
pation of Yasir Arafat’s terrorist
PLO organization. Deeply interested
in the security of Israel, American
Jewry will continue to oppose
Reagan’s proposal, until peace
negotiations arc started by Hussein
with Israel directly—perhaps with
the participation of Palestinians
from the West Bank, but with no
participation of PLO representatives.
• The possible effects on
American-Israel relations when Likud
leader Yitzhak Shamir—who is now
Israel’s foreign minister—will take
over prime ministership from Shimon
Peres, the Labor Party leader. An
agreement between the two leading
groups in Israel’s parliament stipu
lates that Peres is to serve as prime
minister for the first half of the
government’s 50-month term and
Shamir for the second half. There
are sharp differences in the attitude
of each of the two political leaders
with regard to the West Bank issue
and other important issues in which
the U.S. government is interested
as part of its efforts to bring about
peace in the Middle East. Shamir is
considered in Washington as being
more extreme and less flexible than
Peres.
President Reagan, who strongly
advocates free emigration of Jews
from the Soviet Union under the
Helsinki agreement on human rights
did not succeed in convincing
Gorbachev of his views on the
emigration issue. This was clear
from his report to a joint session of
both houses of Congress which he
gave on the day he returned from
the summit meeting. In his report,
he restricted himself to a short
statement on human rights.
This is taken as an indication
that he did not achieve much on
this issue. And this will intensify
the “Let My People Go” activities
on the part of American Jewry.
The campaign against Soviet violation
of the Helsinki agreement will also
find stronger reverberation in
Congress where a substantial majority
of the law makers in both houses is
already supporting the right of
Soviet Jews to free emigration. It is
estimated that there are at present
more than 350,000 applications of
Jews seeking exit visas. Only a
trickle were permitted to leave this
year.
Prior to the summit meeting in
Geneva there were reports, emanating
from Moscow, that the Kremlin
was considering allowing larger
Jewish emigration to Israel on
condition that Israel would show
flexibility on the issue of returning
the Golan Heights to Syria, the
Arab protege of Moscow. There
was also a report that the Soviet
ambassador in Paris met with the
Israeli ambassador there on this
subject, and that Gorbachev would
permit Jewish emigration on a larger
scale but only on direct flights on
French airplanes from Russia to
Israel, to make sure that the emigrants
will not become “dropouts” enroute
to Israel when they reach Vienna
on trains and change their minds
there and proceed to the United
States and other countries, instead
of to Israel. These reports seem to
be have merely “trial balloons”
aimed at creating a friendly atmos
phere for Gorbachev abroad in
connection with the summit meeting.
At the meeting, however, things
turned out to be different. The
Soviets never give something for
nothing. The Kremlin discovered
that it is beneficial to keep the Jews
as a pawn in its negotiations with
the United States for military
concessions.
To Gorbachev and his colleagues
in the Kremlin it is actually immaterial
whether the Soviet Jews will emigrate
to Israel or to the United States as
long as they can benefit by getting
something in return. In fact, the
Kremlin was quietly happy when
Jews who were permitted to leave
the U.S.S.R. for Israel changed
their minds and remained in Vienna
or Italy to await visas to the United
States. It gave the Soviet rulers an
opportunity to counteract Arab
protests against permitting Jewish
emigration by pointing out that
thousands of Soviet Jews whom
they permitted to emigrate did not
proceed to Israel but to the United
States.
The Soviet Jews who were admitted
to the United States as refugees
from oppression do not engage in
conducting anti-Soviet propaganda
in the U.S., and Gorbachev knows
it. Settled by Jewish Federations in
a number of cities, they concentrate
on adjusting themselves to American
life and do not indulge in political
activities. And this is also known
to the Kremlin rulers.
The issue of Jewish emigration
will now be dragged by Gorbachev
into the next summit meeting which
will be held in Washington in the
summer, and possibly even to the
meeting a year later between him
and Reagan scheduled to be held in
1987 in Moscow. This will under
standably keep Jewish organizations
on the alert. It will also cause more
irritation among non-Jewish groups
in America and in the ranks of the
Congress.
Congressional action against
Moscow’s policy with regard to its
Jews will be especially visible during
the new year which will be a year of
elections and re-elections to both
houses of Congress. A great majority
of senators and congressmen have
during their present term strongly
demonstrated their sympathy for
the Jews in the U.S.S.R. Most of
the candidates running for election
to Congress will no doubt make
the rights of the Soviet Jews under
the Helsinki agreement on human
rights a major issue in their election
campaigns.
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News & Views
The Southern Israelite
876-8248
PAGE 5 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 27, 1985