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The Talmudists
Noted artist Max Weber captures the spirit of scholarship and
disputation that marks the learned men of Jewish tradition. The
Talmudists, completed in 1934, is part of a new exhibit at New
York’s Jewish Museum entitled “Treasures of the Jewish Museum.”
The exhibit will run to the summer of 1987.
Conflict continues over
bathing suit ads in Israel
by Yaacov Ben Yosef
Special to 1 he Southern Israelite
RO M E—Violence between
ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews
reached a new intensity this week
as Prime Minister Shimon Peres
urgently sought to cool tempers.
Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek
said the ultra-Orthodox Jewish
community had begun a civil revolt.
Sparking the latest conflict was
ultra-Orthodox displeasure with
bathing suit billboard advertising
in Jerusalem, which they consi
dered immodest and insensitive.
The large color posters show
women models wearing one-and
two-piece bathing suits; the ads
have been placed on bus stop shel
ters, some in religious neighbor
hoods. The posters were more
widely distributed and the models’
poses more provocative than in the
past year.
To the ultra-Orthodox commu
nity, which comprises 10 percent of
Israel’s 3.5 million Jews, it issinfor
a man to look at women. In the
past week ultra-Orthodox Jews
turned on the billboards, spraying
paint on them, and burning entire
bus stations at which the advertis
ing appeared. Some 100 of Israel’s
bus shelters have been either burned
ordamaged by ultra-Orthodox Jews
in the past.
“We are on the verge of a kul-
turkampf,” asserted Rabbi Yitzhak
Peretz. the interior minister, head
of the Ultra-Orthodox Shas party
in the Knesset.
After calling in national figures
Thursday, on the eve of Shavuot,
in an effort at reconciliation, Peres
announced he had formed a special
council to foster religious-secular
harmony. Sitting on the council
are leading members of both com
munities.
Among those present at the Peres
meeting were Cabinet ministers,
Knesset members, the two chief
rabbis, mayors, the police chief
and representatives of the Israeli
media.
The Peres conclave Thursday
had almost no effect in the short
term. Vandals on Saturday des
troyed prayer books and scrawled
graffiti at the Hedushei Harim
Yeshiva in the Ramat Hahayal
neighborhood in Tel Aviv. The
yeshiva is run by the Gur Hassidim.
The Ark of Torah was damaged;
tezylin (phylacteries) were torn and
thrown on the floor. The attack
occurred while the yeshiva’s stu
dents were visiting the Gur in
Jerusalem.
The attack on the synagogue
seemed to be the first secular re
sponse to the growing dispute foc
using on the bathing suit ads: a
note pinned to the door of the syn
agogue threatened to burn more
synagogues if the ultra-Orthodox
continue to deface and burn the
ads. It said: “For every bus station
burned, we will burn a synagogue.”
It was signed: “People Against the
See Conflict, page 19.
f ■ -
The Southern
Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry
'Since 1925'
k LXII Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, June 20, 1986 No. 25
Report that Herzog spied
for Israel called ‘baloney’
by Joseph Polakoff
TSI’s Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON- Allegations
published in a Washington Post
survey stemming from the Pollard
espionage case that officials sym
pathetic to Israel passed U.S. clas
sified information to Israelis were
denounced by Israelis and Ameri
cans.
A front-page report headlined,
“Israel uses special relations to get
secrets,” said “a widespread feel-
ing”exists in “U.S. intelligence and
diplomatic circles that Israel, to
learn American secrets, doesn’t need
a ring of paid spies like Navy ana
lyst Jonathan Jay Pollard, who
pleaded guilty June 4 to participa
ting in an espionage conspiracy.
“For decades, the Israelis have
targeted and have been able to
learn virtually every secret about
U.S. policy in the Middle East,
according to a secret 1979 CIA
report on the Israeli intelligence
services and recent interviews with
more than two dozen current or
former U.S. intelligence officials,”
the Post said.
“This remarkable intelligence
harvest was provided largely, not
by paid agents, but by an unofficial
network of sympathetic American
officials who worked in the State
Department, Pentagon, congres
sional offices, the National Secur
ity Council and even in U.S. intel
ligence agencies, according to the
officials interviewed for this article.”
Among the allegations was that
Chaim Herzog
Israel’s President Chaim Herzog,
who was an attache at the embassy
in Washington, “left the country
hurriedly in 1954 after learning
from a friendly State Department
employee that the FBI knew about
his recruitment of a Jordanian mil
itary officer, according to Wilbur
Crane Eveland III, a U.S. military
intelligence officer at the time.”
The Israeli Embassy here termed
the report “baseless.” A statement,
provided by the embassy to The
Southern Israelite, said: “The alle
gation published in an article in the
Washington Post June 15, 1986,
associating the president of Is
rael Chaim Herzog—during his
service as military attache in Wash
ington in the 1950s with illegal
espionage operations is false, mali
cious and tendentious.
“Col. Herzog concluded in 1954
his extended service as defense at
tache in the United States with all
the honors accorded to a military
attache upon departure,” the Israeli
statement said. “This is not the first
time that this false, baseless allega
tion has been made by the same
irresponsible source whose moti
vation raises many questions.”
While the article did not specify
Jewish officials with sympathizers,
the feeling derived from at least
some of them indicated that Jews
were targeted by implication and
specificity was not needed to create
a climate of suspicion and intimi
dation.
When the Pollard case first broke
late last year, innuendos appeared
that Jews in government were sus
pected of informing Israelis. A
highly-placed former State De
partment officer, when interviewed
about such reports, dismissed them
sharply. “Blaming Jews for espi
onage is an old story. Anti-Semites
created such fiction in generations
past,” he said.
Another official recalled the
Dreyfuss case that rocked France
when the French officer was falsely
accused.
Regarding the allegations in the
survey, a congressional source said,
“I have no time for such lying,
period.”
"That story is baloney,” another
said at the Capitol. “This is utter
nonsense of the dual loyalty type.”
PARIS (JTA)—Kurt Waldheim,
Austria’s newly elected president,
plans to pay a visit to the site of the
former concentration camp Mau
thausen in “homage to the victims
of Nazism.”
The former United Nations
secretary-general who was elected
June 8 in spite of revelations con
cerning his own role as a German
officer in the Balkans and Greece,
said in a French Radio interview
here Monday that he wants to
“show his good will and good
intentions.”
Waldheim did not say when he
will visit the site of the notorious
concentration camp north of Vienna
but said “it will be soon.”
Waldheim says he plans vii
to Mauthausen death camp si
by Edwin Eytan [ Austria’s policy of servir
Kurt Waldheim
He also said he will “fight against
anti-Semitism in all its forms” and
pledged to continue supporting
Austria’s policy of serving as a
transit point for Jews leaving the
Soviet Union.
Asked whether he will visit Israel,
Waldheimsaid he will do so “once
spirits will have calmed down.” He
added that he wants such a visit,
should it take place, to be tho
roughly prepared.
The Austrian president-elect
welcomed Nazi hunter Simon Wie-
senthai’s suggestion, saying he
welcomes setting up a commission
of military experts to look into his
past.
"All I want,” said Waldheim, “is
that the commission should include
real experts familiar with German
army practices at the time and the
roles connected to the various ranks
serving in the Wehrmacht.”