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The Southern Israelite , , The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry ,, 'Since 1925' 1 What is Soviets’ motiv*. behind talks at Helsinki? Philip Blumenthal presents check to Jack Freedman. Blumenthal donation boosts AJCC/Cobb The long-sought Cobb County branch facility of the Atlanta Jew ish Community Center came nearer to reality recently when formal presentation was made by Philip Blumenthal of a check for $511,000 to the AJCC to honor the memory of his late wife. The new Center branch will be known as the Shir ley Blumenthal Park. Jack Freedman, president of the £j CC, gratefully accepted the check, noting that the funds will assist the Center in purchasing land to build a Cobb County facil ity. which will include a building, a day camp site, recreational facili ties and a family park. Sharing the occasion were Blu- menthal’s family and friends, in cluding his wife, Mona; son and daughter-in-law, Mark and Patti Blumenthal; sister and brother-in- law, Margie and Alvin Greenberg; Henry Birnbrey; Allen Altman and Philip Sunshine. Representing the Center were Max Kuniansky, Freedman, Bar rie Segall, Erwin Zaban and Harris Jacobs. Gerald Cohen represented the Atlanta Jewish Federation. by Joseph Polakoff TSl’s Washington correspondent WASHINGTON—Soviet-Israeli talks in Helsinki Aug. 17 to discuss arrangements for reopening consu lates in Moscow and Tel Aviv were initiated by the Kremlin as a start to obtain a major role in Arab- Israeli negotiations, analysts say. In addition, the timing for Mos cow’s announcement that Natan (Anatoly) Shcharansky’s family will be allowed to emigrate to Israel is directly linked to removal of an obstacle to improvement of the Soviet image at the expected Reagan-Gorbachev summit talks late this year. These two Soviet initiatives, along with President Reagan’s subsidy on the sale of American wheat to the Soviet Union, were seen at the Capitol as having an impact on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment’s future, but no spe cific movement has yet appeared in pertinent congressional committees toward modification of that law tying U.S. government credit to Soviet emigration practices. Many Israelis, notably Shcha- ransky, have reacted coldly to the Soviet initiative for the Helsinki talks because of the absence of any sign of increased Soviet Jewish emigration. Shcharansky in Jerus alem urged the Israeli government not to enter the talks unless more Soviet Jews are allowed to emi grate: “A precondition to all nego tiations with the Soviet U nion must be a demand of serioufr change in the policy of the Soviet Union toward Jews. We must remember that when there were relations with the Soviet Union it had no positive influence on emigration.” The National Conference for Soviet Jewry’s Washington office said only 417 Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union during the first seven months of this year compared with 1,140 all of last year and 896 in 1984. The number for July was only 31, the lowest monthly total this year. Regarding the Helsinki talks, the State Department said, “Our consistent position is that Israel should enjoy relations with the widest possible number of foreign governments.” It would not com ment on whether the U.S. had a See Helsinki, page 22. ‘Action Agenda’ Eizenstat describes need to create 'New Zionism’ Stuart Eizenstat makes a point at AJC meeting at the Southern Center for International Studies. At left is Cedric Suzman. by Vida Goldgar Addressing members of the At lanta Chapter of the American Jewish Committee Sunday morn ing Stuart E. Eizenstat, founding chairman of AJC’s new' Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Rela tions, called for a new“‘Action Agenda’ of more intensive invol vement in the life and times of Israel." Eizenstat described the need to help create a “New Zionism which meets the challenges of the latter part of this century in the same way the Zionism of Theodor Herzl over 100 years ago met the imperatives and the conditions ot the late 19th and early 20th century.” A native Atlantan. Eizenstat was assistant to the president for do mestic affairs and policy during the Carter administration. He is a part ner in the law' firm of Powell, Goldstein. Frazer and Murphy, based in the Washington office, and is an adjunct lecturer at the John K Kennedy School of Gov ernment. Harvard University. In a preface to his prepared remarks, Eizenstat described his new of how the Institute differs troni other Jewish organizations which, he said, tend to be one of two things: "They either tend to be internal defense organizations or to be Israel support groups.” Both, he assured the audience, are neces sary and we support them, but “we felt there was need for a third func tion; for American Jews and Israeli Jews to understand each other bet ter.” Despite the fact that it has now been 38 years since Israel’s rebirth, Eizenstat and others feel that American Jews and Israelis “really understand each other no better than in 1948.” He said, “Is raelis tend to think that American Jews are not Zionists...because we have not made the ultimate com mitment of going there to become citizens of a Jewish state. We. on the other hand have tended to see Israel through very idealized or stereotyped visions. “On the one hand, in the early years of the state, we tended to think of Israelis as a group of happy kibbutzniks who were per petually dancing around campfires while they forged a new country. Now, we tend to think of Israel as a state totally beseiged by terror and antagonists and living in constant dread. “Neither one of these stereotypes was ever completely accurate,” he pointed out. “nevertheless they are the ones that were widely held.” Eizenstat said. “It is essential for American Jews to broaden what has been largely, at best, a one dimensional charitable and senti mental relationship with the state of Israel to a multidimensional, deeper, more intense relationship with the people of Israel and the realities of a Jewish state some four decades after the founding of that state.” It is toward that goal of respond ing constructively to the complex and changing relationships between American Jewry and the people of Israel that the AJC established the Institute on American Jewish-Is- raeli Relations. The 50-member American Advisory Board, chaired by Eizenstat, includes a broad spectrum of American Jewish leaders from across the country, including Harriet M. Zimmerman of Atlanta. Twenty prominent Is raelis comprise the Israeli Advi sory Board, chaired by S. Zalman Abramov, fotmer deputy speaker of the Knesset. An address delivered by Eizen stat to the Israeli Advisory Board in June formed the basis for his remarks on Sunday. Noting that Zionism has always been subject to different interpre tations, Eizenstat pointed out that “Louis Brandeis on the one hand and Ben-Gurion on the other could never agree on what Zionism meant, and each had a different interpre tation from Theodor Herzl.” Though, according to Eizenstat, the American and the Israeli advi sory boards spent many hours in many meetings trying to come to a definition (of Zionism) that would suit everyone, “we concluded that there is no one definition of Zion ism which would satisfy both Israeli and American Jews. However, he said they had agreed on one thing: “However one defines it, what we need today is to breathe a new meaning into a living Zionism that is relevant to today’s realities and which recognizes the interdepen dence, the unity and the survival of the Jewish people as its principal imperative, with Israel as the epi center and model of Jewish life, and aliyah as the apex of Zionist commitment.” Yet. he said, though we are for- tunate to be the first generation to See Eizenstat. page 23. LBR UNO A0 SOF gforgia neklpapfr projfct MAIN LIBRARY URTV OF GFORGIA