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PAGE 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 1, 1986 The Southern Israelite The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jev'*' Since 1925' Vida Goldgar Luna Levy Editor and Publisher Associate Editor Leonard Goldstein Eschol A. Harrell Advertising Director Production Manager Lutz Baum Business Manager Published every Friday by The Southern Israelite, Inc. Second Class Postage paid at Atlanta, Ga (ISSN 00388) (UPS 776060) POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Southern Israelite, P.O Box 77388. Atlanta, GA 30357 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 77388, Atlanta, Georgia 30357 Location: 188 15th St„ N.W., All., Ga. 30318 Phone (404)876-8248 Advertising rates available upon request. Subscriptions: $23.00, 1 year; $41.00, 2 years Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency; Religious News Service; American Jewish Press Assn.; Georgia Press Assn.; National Newspaper Assn. Guest editorial The Lavi rolls out Last week Israel rolled out its first Lavi fighter-bomber. The Lavi promises to become the state-of-the-art combat aircraft for the 1990s and beyond. It is designed not only to survive but to excel in combat. The Lavi should help Israel continue to deter its enemies and, should deterrence fail, to carry the fighting to them. Israel remains one of a handful of countries which build aircraft. It is a heavy burden for such a small country but, in Israel’s case, unavoidable. No Israeli planner can forget the experience of 1967 when France’s DeGaulle, to improve relations with Arab states, impounded 50 Mirage jets built to Israeli specifications and already paid for. (The planes eventually went to Egypt and Libya.) But the decision to construct the Lavi represented more than bleak necessity for Israel. The United States sells Israel F-I5s and F-16s, now the backbone of the Israeli Air Force. Washington is more than an arms supplier; linked to Jerusalem by political and moral as well as strategic bonds, it is an infinitely more reliable ally than Paris ever could have been. And with some major Lavi components being purchased in the United States—and more than 100 American subcontractors working on the project—America benefits as well. The Lavi project will be the largest industrial undertaking in Israel’s history. It has been compared, because of its possible technological spin-offs and economic stimulus, to the Apollo space program in this country. Nevertheless, there is controversy. Pentagon officials have argued that the Lavi, partially funded by U.S. aid, will be more expensive than Israel estimates. Israel disputes the Pentagon figures, explaining that some of the numbers are based on American, not Israeli, production costs. Some Israelis worry that spending on the new plane could limit funds for the Army and Navy. But there is no doubt that Israel must have a “next-generation” fighter-bomber in the 1990s. The costs are high but the rewards poten tially much higher. The Lavi is getting close scrutiny; it also has earned the backing of Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the national unity government. It should be evaluated on its own merits, by those whose security it will defend. Vida Goldgar Profile in Wb**n Hirshel Jaffe—sporting a shirt that pro claimed him “The Running Rabbi”-completed the grueling 26 miles of the New York City Marathon in 1978, he resisted the urging of a friend to lie down in the shade and rest. “I’m hardly tired,” he told his friend and fellow rabbi, Jim Rudin. Three years later the energy was gone. The 46-year-old spiritual leader of Temple Beth Jacob in Newburgh, N.Y., who considered himself indestructible, lay in a hos pital bed, preparing for a spleenec- tomy. The diagnosis had been hairy-cell leukemia, a rare disease that strikes about 400 people annually and which the usual chemotherapy does not help. Despite the grim and painful prognosis, Jaffe began recording his thoughts and experiences. So did his close friends. Rabbi James and Marcia Rudin. The result is a moving account of the hopes and fears, the questions, the anger, the challenges. Published this spring by St. Martin’s Press, “Why Me? Why Anyone7 is part diary, part dialogue, not only recounting Jaffe s battle with the disease but the questions of faith both rabbis confront. Rabbi Rudin, the national director of interreli gious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, serves on New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s “Life and Law” committee which deals with bioethical issues. His wife is an author and former theology and philosophy professor. A few weeks ago, the Rudins were in Atlanta en route back to New York from Pine Mountain where they had helped Marcia Rudin’s father celebrate his 75th birthday. They stopped by my office to talk about the book. They brought the good news that over a year after the book ends with Rabbi Jaffe returning to his pulpit and saying “Maybe I had to undergo this illness in order to help people better and in that way serve God. Maybe that’s God’s purpose for me...,’’ Rabbi Jaffe is still in remission from the disease that came so close to taking his life. The “miracle” came about because Jaffe was accepted for experimental interferon treatment at the University of Chicago Medical Center by Dr. Harvey Golomb, whom the Rudins call the No. 1 specialist in the world in the treatment of hairy-cell leukemia. None of the three authors expected the book to have a happy ending. “The problem was,” Marcia Rudin said, “that we wrote it as it was happening so we didn’t know he was going to get better. We chose to end it at certain times, but then his story kept going on.” At one time, when Jaffe was near death, he told the Rudins, “Go ahead and finish the book without me. I trust your judgment.” AWACS courage Before the interferon treatment, Jaffe’s goal was to live long enough to attend his daughter Rachel’s bat mitzva. Of that poignant day, he writes; “And, of course, all through the service, the Shehecheyanu kept running through my mind. For months I’ve been thinking. ‘1 have to make it to Rachel’s bat mitzva.’ 1 didn’t think, ‘let me live, but I said, ‘Dammit, I’m going to make it because I want to hear that line, say that line, feel that line: Thank you, God, for keeping me alive and sustaining me and letting me reach this day. Marcia Rudin commented on Rabbi Jaffe’s deter mination: “His willpower, his state of mind, were so very important. We have whole sections in (the book) about how Judaism views illness and medical care and howimportant in rabbinic Judaism is the relationship between mind and body.” Her husband added, “We are rabbis and we are in a business where even when he was out of the hospital, Hirshel couldn’t lose himself in his work... The very work that he does is often with illness, funerals, people in trouble. Even when he personally wanted to escape (from his problems), he couldn’t.” For both rabbis, the cliches and pat formulas sud denly became real. “We understood better,” Rabbi Rudin said, “when someone said, ‘I want to live to see my daughter get married.’ All the formulas we learned in rabbinic school had to be recast. They don’t neces sarily work for yourself. He drew a lot of strength, we all did, from the Jewish tradition but not quite the way we had been doing it for more than 20 years. Mrs. Rudin added, “Hirshel had a spiritual crisis he really had to face up to: what does comfort you in this kind of situation. When it’s happening to you it’s different than when it’s happening to someone else." The long years of friendship between the two rab bis, and the fact that since Rabbi Jaffe was a congrega tional rabbi and Rabbi Rudin was an organizational rabbi they were not competitive in any way, made communication and confidences easier. “The rabbi nate is professionally a very lonely business,” Rudin told me. “Often rabbis’ best friends are other rabbis.” Throughout the book one feels the strong sense of family and the strength Hirshel Jaffe drew from his wife Judi, a professor of nursing. Her medical back ground enabled her to ask the right questions but it also gave her more knowlege of her husband’s condi tion than was comforting. Despite its subject matter, the book is not a downer. According to the Rudins, many people who have read the book believe that one of the most interesting parts is how Rabbi Jaffe’s illness changed his work as a rabbi. “He’s learned to listen to people more; to really feel for them more.” revisited —Near East Report Near East Report American taxpayers have been spending $100 million a year for the past six years to protect Saudi Arabia, Administration officials disclosed at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. Five AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft have been sta tioned since 1980 in the richest oil- producing country in the world at a cost to the U.S. government of $600 million. The Saudis did pro vide fuel, housing for crews and in-country security, according to the officials. Richard Murphy, assistant secre tary of state for Near Eastern Af fairs, and Richard Armitage, assist ant secretary of Defense for Inter national Affairs, appeared before the Europe and Middle East Sub committee which was conducting oversight hearings on the transfer of five AWACS planes to Saudi Arabian control. The first plane was turned over to Saudi Arabia July 2; four more will be trans ferred over the next eight months. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) said he was outraged that our govern ment did not ask the Saudis to pay for the protection of their territory and oil fields. “It would have been in our interest to have them pay for this service.” Armitage replied, “We feel we got a good deal because we pro tected the Gulf and Saudi oil fields.” The officials also revealed that the U.S.-Saudi transfer agreement does not contain any provision allowing American recourse if Saudi Arabia does not adhere to the terms of the sale. In 1981, the Saudis boosted the price of oil significantly imme diately following the Senate vote approving the AWACS sale. The panel contested President Reagan s assertion that “significant progress toward the peaceful reso lution of disputes in the region has been accomplished with the sub stantial assistance of Saudi Ara bia.” Rep. Ed Feighan (D-Ohio) stated that “one must undertake incredible if not impossible mental gymnastics to see the Saudis as having met the conditions of the sale,” and Rep. Mel Levine (D- Calif.) declared that “the adminis tration is engaged in a quite elabo rate process of fiction.” Rep. Michael Barnes (D-Md.), author of the requirement for presidential certification on the AWACS trans fer, said that “if the Saudis cannot deliver (on the peace process), then we should not deliver.” Levine said the administration has failed to learn the lessons of the overwhelming votes in May against the president’s trimmed-down mis sile sale to the Saudis (356-62 in the House and 73-22 in the Senate). “What is the impact of that vote on administration policy? What is the price we are paying?” Levine asked. Murphy responded, “They pay hard cash. There is no cost to us. Our interests go beyond the Arab-lsraeli conflict. We have other interests.”