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PAGE 8 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE September 12, 1986 $6 99 Served Nightly 5-7 p.m. Selections include: London Broil , mushroom sauce Broiled Filet of Flounder Deep Fried Oysters Chicken Teriaki Chefs Evening Selection Complete Candlelight Dinners include appetizer, entree, dessert and beverage. Reservations 955-1700 ‘Israeli Ralph Nader Journalist ‘Bridging the Gap’ for Haifa U. HOLIDAY INN' POWERS FERRY by Vida Goldgar It takes a full typewritten page to list the books, plays, essays, child ren’s stories, youth adventures and documentaries Baruch Nadel has written. But it is not his creative writing which has earned him his greatest fame (some say notoriety) in Israel and abroad but his news paper reporting career which spanned some 30 years. Hard-hit ting exposes of corruption, mostly published during his years with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, and a life long battle on behalf of Israel’s underclass gained readers for the papers but, more impor tantly, resulted in many social changes. A series of articles in the early 1970s dealing with unsavory con ditions in Israel’s food industry not only earned him the nickname of the “Israeli Ralph Nader,” but brought him Israel’s most presti gious journalism award, the Soko lov Prize. A later series on sub standard education provided to the poor brought about the imme diate withdrawal of inadequate textbooks. He received the 1974 Israeli Black Panthers Award for courageous reporting of social problems. But Nadel did more than write about problems. He worked directly for their solution as well. In 1976, he organized nearly 4,000 volun teers into a “One People—One 30% off* ALL FALL & WINTER ACCESSORIES DRESSES & SPORTSWEAR *SUGGESTED RETAIL 3330 PIEDMONT KROGER-LIMELIGHT 262-79412 MON. thru SA T. 10 til 6PM 30%OFF EVERYDAY MARCHE 30% OFF All (suggested retail) FALL & WINTER SPORTSWEAR • ACCESSORIES Abernathy Square (next to Bankers Note) 255-6316 Mon.-Sat 10-6 Merchants Festival (near Big Star) 971-6656 Tues-Sat 11-6 Northeast Plaza (next to Cohoes) Opening Soon MARCHE IS A DIVISION OF R.A. LYNDON Heart” movement and, at the re quest of government officials, drew up proposals concerning feasible ways to renew poor neighborhoods. That became the first blueprint for Project Renewal. In 1971, he was the main fund-raiser on the Com mittee for the Children of Bangla desh and helped organize deliver ies of soya flour and penicillin to refugee camps in India. Now this tall, trim 60ish man—a sabra who fought in pre-state bat tles and post-1948 wars—has a new cause, one which brought him to the United States. Nadel’s efforts these days are directed toward acquainting Amer icans with one of Israel’s newer institutions of higher learning and gaining support—both financial and emotional—for Haifa Univer sity, established in 1971. This brought him to Atlanta not long ago and will bring him back in a few weeks for what is called, in fundraising circles, a parlor meet ing. In a visit to The Southern Israe lite, he was asked how he got involved. Nadel speaks the way he writes—bluntly. “I am not a lib eral,” he said. “I don’t believe in giving money to teenagers who make more and more children with out fathers around. They will never be productive citizens or happy human beings.” Then he quickly added. “I do believe in one thing: giving people a good education.” As he often did in the course of our interview, he drew on his own experience. “I was raised on the poorest kibbutz in Palestine because it didn’t belong to any political party. At 13 I plowed the earth with two mules, after school. At 15, during the summer vaction, I got up at 2:30 in the morning to milk cows.” That brings another memory: “I ate just enough to be able to work but was never under privileged because I never felt that way. We believed we were building a new center for the Jewish people. We lived financially poorer than the poorest but we were not poor psychologically or culturally.” His father, whom he calls a “left-wing Zionist,” established in 1924 the only youth movement that had Sephardi youngsters as members, and even some Arab youths. “I was raised without prejudice,” he says, but adds that in those days “Jews and Arabs didn’t really fight with each other unless the British wanted it.” And that brought us back to Haifa University and particularly to one of its major programs called “Bridging the Gap.” Established in 1974, the project was begun to help solve the concentration of social, economic and demographic prob lems of the Galilee where, in the 1950s, hundreds of thousands of new immigrants, mainly Sephar dim, were settled. As is often the case, the strong, the professionals, the more gifted, moved to the cit ies. The poor, the uneducated, re mained. Nadel has some bitter thoughts about that: “When we brought most of the Jews of Yemen to Israel, they were brought from the 13th century to the 20th century. Later, we brought Jews who lived in the 20th century in Iraq and Morocco but the Ashkenazi estab lishment still treated them as if they came from caves in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco or the poor areas of Iraq.” He says these peo ple, who had been people of means in their home countries, were sprayed with DDT at the air port and sent to tent towns in the Galilee. The way they were per ceived, he indicates, became a self- fulfilling prophecy. It is to the children and grandchildren of these immigrants that Bridging the Gap is directed, educating them to be community leaders, army officers, teachers, social workers and psy chologists of the Galilee. Beginning with 65 students, the program now has close to 900 stu dents. They are chosen from among academically promising applicants and given free tuition and dormi tory expenses provided they return to their communities after gradua tion. So far, almost 80 percent have done so and another 10 per cent went to other underprivileged neighborhoods. More than 20 of the graduates have been elected as mayors, deputy mayors, local coun cil chairmen or council members. Nadel said that the Yom Kip- pur War, “when two-thirds of the soldiers in the tanks and infantry who stopped the Syrians and Egyptians were Sephardim,” was the turning point in the attitude toward the “Oriental Jews.” Nadel said, too, that Project Renewal had a major effect since many of the neighborhoods which have undergone transformation with aid from American communi ties (such as Atlanta’s Yehud) were essentially Sephardic. “Project Re newal,” he said, “gave hope to people who had lost their hope. It changed the environment." Altogether, Haifa University has approximately 7,000 students, and Bridging the Gap is by no means its only major program. There is the Center of Women’s Studies (de spite the image that Israel is the epit ome of women’s liberation, facts prove otherwise) and the Center for Study of Psychological Stress which not only does research on stress in one of the most stressful countries, but provides expert con sultation to governmental agencies. By the end of the conversation, it is clear that Baruch Nadel’s latest role is not at all different from his journalistic efforts. He’s just going about it in a different way. mazoa The Critics' Choice Best value Low maintenance j/. oj means a cut above - the more you look, the more you like! MAZDA 323 LUXUIO SF[) A \ 1 | ( \| SPORT SEDAN BEST 1 D S DEAL CONSUMER GUIDE ’S CHOICE FOR 1986 PRICES ma/da k\ * > i ■ > > pk LARGE DISCOUNTS Mazda bjoihi ____ . N0 HASSLE/NO WAITING LIST no ATLANTA CUSTOMERS. 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