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Ex-Nazi fights deportation order
NEW YORK(J I A)—A defense attorney for accused Nazi war
criminal Karl Linnas argued before an appeals court this week that
a lower court decision ordering that his client be deported to the
Soviet Union for war crimes would amount to pushing “him over
the border to be shot." Linnas has been sentenced to death in
absentia by the Soviet Union for his war crimes. The Appeals Court
reserved decision on the case.
1 he attorney, Ivars Berzins, spoke before the three-judge panel
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, hearing
arguments in the case of Linnas, a 66-year-old Long Island resident
accused by the U.S. government of being a former commandant of
the Nazi concentration camp in Tartu, Estonia, who was ordered
deported in 1985.
Yordim finding way hack home
NEW YORK (JTA)—A growing number of Israelis who have
resided in the United States and Canada for a number of years are
returning to Israel, despite the precarious economic situtation
there. According to Israel's Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs,
1,700 Israelis returned home in 1985.
Consul Amos Haddad, head of the Ministry of Labor’s delega
tion here, said in a summary report on 1985 to Moshe Katzav,
Israel’s Labor Minister, that amongthe Israeli’s returningto Israel
are individuals who left excellent high-paying jobs in the U.S. or
Canada “for more satisfying jobs in Israel, although the pay is
considerably lower.” According to Haddad, the yordim, Israelis
who left Israel, who are returning home resided in North America
between two and 11 years or more.
Soviet Jews honor Maimonides
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A large group of Jewish scientists
recently gathered in a private home in Moscow to commemorate
the 850th anniversary of the birth of Maimonides, Soviet immi
grants in Israel were informed. The gathering, attended by 82
Jewish scientists, was the largest of the sort in the past six years.
Among those present were well-known refusniks as well as guests
from abroad.
The participants extended greetings to Anatoly Shcharansky.
Forty-two of the scientists signed a petition appealing to Soviet
authorities to release all Prisoners of Zion and to allow all Jews
who wish to emigrate to Israel to do so. A copy of the petition was
sent to the Public Council for Soviet Jewry in Tel Aviv.
Le Pen’s party gains seats
PARIS (JTA)—The ultra-rightwing National Front Party,
whose leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, has been denounced as a racist
and an anti-Semite by Jewish community leaders, elbowed its way
into Parliament last week in national elections that left the winning
center-right coalition four seats short of the majority they need to
form a government.
Le Pen, whose party won 35 seats in the 577-seat National
Assembly—and nearly 10 percent of the total vote compared to
one percent in the last elections—promptly declared he would not
support a new center-right government unless he is part of it. The
possibility looms that he well may be.
Only last week a court sentenced Le Pen to a symbolic fine after
finding him guilty of racist remarks when he insulted four Jewish
reporters who had been critical of his party’s activities.
Israeli troupe visits Treblinka
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israeli ballet company. Bat Dor,
paused in its highly successful tour of Poland last week to recite
kaddish at the site of the Treblinka death camp.
Barry Swersky, manager of the company, led the dancers in
placing a wreath at the foot of a stone plinth which marks the site.
Treblinka was demolished by the Nazis after a prisoner revolt in
August 1943.
Rumanian rabbi raps apartheid
HARARE, ZIMBABWE (JTA)—Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen
of Rumania, in the keynote speech before a national assembly of
Zimbabwe Jewry, condemned all forms of racism and anti-
Semitism and on behalf of the Jewish people expressed specific
condemnation of apartheid in South Africa, the World Jewish
Congress reported here.
Rosen, as a member of the WJC governing board, was the guest
of honor at the 24th biennial congress of the Central African
Jewish Board of Deputies. The Jewish community of Zimbabwe,
the largest in black Africa, numbers some 1,300 members.
Kahane’s ‘rescue’ menaces all Jews?
Editor:
At the time when a sliver of
Palestine had not yet been recog
nized as the State of Israel, even
then, Jews were harassed and fre
quently murdered. The British,
who were the occupying power,
used all possible means to bring the
early settlers under submission
while doing little to dissuade mur
derous Arab tendencies. No one
need be informed of the infamous
British White Paper, which pre
vented hundreds of thousands of
Jews from emigrating to Palestine
and thereby avoiding death in
the Holocaust.
Ever on the alert against attack
from both without and within, an
added dimension of evil within
Israel has now become evident.
Sadly, much of it brought about by
Jews themselves under the leader
ship of a misguided zealot, Meir
Kahane.
While Kahane has learned to
temper his rhetoric, his actions and
those of his followers, a group
known as Kach, present a frighten
ing challenge to the security of the
state.
Not satisfied with threatening to
throw the Arabs out of Israel,
cleansing the West Bank and Gaza
of Arabs, he has now taken a
further step that horrifies not only
Israelis but people the world over.
Goaded by this menacing per
sonality, some of his cult have
taken upon themselves the task of
salvaging the souls of Jewish
women who dared marry Arabs
and birthed children. They have
literally invaded Arab settlements
and kidnapped these women and
their children, bringing them back
to Israel and depositing them in
decrepit shelters far worse than the
conditions under which they pre
viously lived. True, some women
did not strenuously object. Most,
however, did. They were seized
under duress.
Can we envision how this action
affects the thinking of the average
Arab? Their hostility toward Israel
can only be increased. Yet, there
are those Israelis who condone and
sanction this horrendous per
formance.
There are none so blind as those
who will not see. Chances of the
unthinkable probability that the
Kach party will gain popularity
and increased seats in the Knesset
are highly possible. Unfortunately,
some benighted individuals reside
in our midst here in Atlanta. What
will it take to convince them of
Kahane’s menace not only to
Israeli Jews but to all Jews.
Max E. Robkin
AJC to probe Jewish family planning
Editor:
The American Jewish Commit
tee is launching a pilot research
project to examine decisions relat
ing to Jewish family planning.
In this research, we will be
attempting to establish what fac
tors actually motivate Jewish cou
ples to have or not have children.
The findings of this research will
provide the Jewish community
with the information we need to
develop appropriate responses to
current population trends.
For this ground-breaking re
search project, we are looking for
couples in their child-bearing years
who have selected to have three or
more children, only one child, and
those choosing not to have child
ren. If you fall into one of these
three categories, call Ronnie
Editor:
Those of us at the Hebrew
Academy of Atlanta were very
pleased to see the article about
Brian Epstein, a 1981 graduate of
the Academy, in The Southern
Israelite last week. Brian was an
outstanding student and was one
of the first Academy students to
take part in the Duke University
search for gifted seventh grade
Henderson at the AJC office 233-
5501 by April 11.
Sherry Frank, Area Director,
American Jewish Committee
students.
We were also pleased with the
recognition given to Rita Tuvlin,
who has been the science teacher at
the school since 1979 and has been
instrumental in inspiring not only
Brian, but many other Academy
students.
Martha Sanders,
Assistant headmaster
Article pleases Academy
Kids to refusnik: We care
“Dear Mr. Lifshitz, I am very
concerned about your problems. 1
just wanted you to know that I am
concerned and wrote to Mikhail
Gorbachev. I am an 11-year-old
Jew. I hope you can go to Israel
very soon.” So wrote Cheryl
Fields, one of the eight children in
the fifth and sixth grade class of
Temple Kol Emeth’s religious
school.
These students recently ex
pressed their concern for noted
refusnik Vladimir Lifshitz, who
was arrested Jan. 8 allegedly for
“defaming the Soviet State.” The
children, in addition to writing to
Lifshitz, wrote letters of protest to
Mikhail Gorbachev.
“I am sorry you are in prison,”
wrote Jamie Parker to Lifshitz. “I
and the rest of our class are trying
to do everything we can to get you
out of jail.”
Michelle Weinberg, the chil
dren’s religious school teacher,
commented that “this project is
one of the best ways to help our
children understand the plight of
Soviet Jews and, as Jamie’s letter
points out, to take an active role in
the worldwide effort to secure Vla-
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dimir Lifshitz’s release.”
The feelings of the entire class
were reflected in Hilary Cohn’s let
ter which stated: “Here in Amer
ica, we Jews can practice our reli
gion freely.”
Other students who wrote letters
are Adam Parker Nelson, Jason
Smith, Tracy Planer, Mike Mayes
and Heather Shidel.
In addition to advocating on
behalf of Lifshitz, Temple Kol
Emeth has “adopted” former
Prisoner-of-Conscience, Osip
Lokshin, as part of the communi
tywide Jewry refusnik “adoption”
program, which is sponsored by
the Worldwide Jewish Affairs
Sub-Committee of the Atlanta
Jewish Federation’s Community
Relations Committee.
—Haifa sells cable car system
TEL AVIV (JTA)—The Haifa municipality’s new cable car
system linking the top of Mt. Carmel with the beach at Bat Galim,
has been sold toa private consortium for $1.4 million. The purpose
of the sale was to circumvent the ban on Sabbath operation of the
facility imposed by the government under heavy pressure from the
Orthodox religious establishment.
Saturday is the only day off for Israeli workers who might like
to use the cable car to go to and from the beach. But the Orthodox
say they will not tolerate a Sabbath desecration no matter who
owns the cable car. They are supported by Prime Minister Shimon
Peres, who like all past prime ministers has complied with
Orthodox demands rather than risk a coalition crisis.
PAGE 5 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE March 21, 1986