Newspaper Page Text
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 12, 1986 Page 11
Damascus affair
1840 papers uncover early Jewish protest
WALTHAM, Mass. (JTA)—
Original documents detailing a
joint effort by four American
Jewish communities in 1840 to
protest the torture of Jews in
Damascus have been uncovered
by the American Jewish Histori
cal Society.
The papers include handwrit
ten letters from Moses Montefi-
ore, the sheriff of London and
the most prominent Jewish leader
at the time, and U.S. Secretary of
State John Forsyth, as well as
minutes from public meetings
protesting what is widely known
as the Damascus Affair.
“Historically, this is an
extremely important discovery,”
according to Bernard Wax, di
rector of the society, who re
cently discovered the letters in a
metal container among the pap
ers of the late Rabbi Edward
Klein of the Free Synagogue in
New York.
“The Damascus Affair was a
pivotal event in American Jewish
history,” Wax said. “It marked
the first time there was an organ
ized protest involving more than
one Jewish community to protest
outrages against Jews in another
Likud nixes West German trip
JERUSALEM (JTA) Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir has
come under fire from his Likud
Herut colleagues for supporting
President Chaim Herzog’s sche
duled state visit to West Ger
many next year.
The Herut Party Secretariat
adopted a resolution at a stormy
meeting in Tel Aviv over the
weekend demanding that the
party’s Cabinet ministers oppose
the trip and prevail upon Herzog
to cancel it. Shamir was not at
the meeting.
The trip, announced last month
after Herzog’s return from a two-
week tour to Australia, New Zea-
Cleveland mayor
perturbs his city
on visit to Israel
CLEVELAND (JTA)—Mayor
Voinovich is not likely to get a
warm welcome home when he
returns to City Hall from a visit
to Israel.
Citizens of Cleveland, local
officials and the press arc far
from pleased with the remark
His Honor dropped at a Tel Aviv
press conference Monday to the
effect that, despite Israel’s his
tory of w ar and terrorist assaults,
he feels “safer here than in some
neighborhoods in my city.”
He explained later that he
meant, "l feel as safe in Israel as l
do at home, in my own city.”
But his ex post facto clarifica
tion did little to ease injured civic
pride. The Cleveland Plain Dealer
suggested in an editorial Tuesday
that the returning mayor might
be detained at the border for
“foot-in-mouth disease.”
land and Southeast Asia, has
been attacked in both leftwing
and rightwing circles. They say it
could be interpreted as a sym
bolic forgiveness of the Germans
for their Nazi past.
Herzog has argued that his
three-day stay in the Federal
Republic will focus on the Holo
caust. He plans to attend a mem
orial service at the site of the
Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp. His trip wiil reciprocate
the visit to Israel last year by
West Germany’s President Rich
ard von Weizsaecker.
Meanw hile, Herzog’s Southeast
Asia visit is having repercussions
in Malaysia, w here he did not go,
and Singapore, where he w'as
greeted by anti-Israel demonstra
tions. Malaysia is an Islamic
country which does not have
diplomatic relations with Israel.
Singapore has, but is strongly
influenced by its Islamic neigh
bors, Malaysia to the north.
Indonesia to the west and south
and Brunei to the southeast.
Charges of “Zionist interfer
ence” in Malaysia’s internal affairs
were raised in that country’s Eng
lish-language weekly Watan last
week. It reported on an “Anti-
Jew Day” speech by Mustapha
Ali, the Islamic Party youth leader.
He charged that the U.S.-based
Asia Foundation is a “front” for
American Jews and demanded
that its office in Kuala Lumpur,
the Malaysian capital, be closed.
He was quoted as saying, “Our
determination is to destroy the
Jews and also to stop all cam
paigns that are carried out by
non-Jews who wish to obstruct
the expansion of Islam.”
The Straits Times, an English-
language daily in Singapore, re
ported that Mustapha Ali also
charged that Singapore policy
was influenced by a Jew, Alex
Josey, the biographer of Singa
pore Prime Minister Lee Kuan
Yew, whom he formerly served
as press spokesman. L.ee warmly
welcomed Herzog to Singapore
last month.
country.”
The Damascus Affair was a
blood libel that occurred in Syria
in 1840 when 13 Jews were impri
soned and tortured for the alleged
ritual murders of a Christian
monk and his servant. Two pri
soners died from the torture and
one converted to Christianity.
The incident exploded into an
international affair. Most of the
protests were led by Montefiore
and by Mordecai Manuel Noah,
founder of the New York Herald
and the sheriff of the Port of New
York, and Rabbi Isaac Leeser of
Philadelphia, two of the most
prominent American Jews in the
I9th century.
Minutes of meetings held in
American communities protest
ing the imprisonment and tor
ture of the Jews in Damascus,
newspaper clippings describing
the protests here and abroad, a
letter to President Martin Van
Buren, and other correspondence
and resolutions, were among the
papers uncovered by the Ameri
can Jewish Historical Society.
Wax said the papers appar
ently were originally given to
Rabbi Stephen Wise (Klein’s
predecessor at the Free Syna
gogue) in 1896 by Max Kohler,
an attorney, author and former
secretary of the society who was
an avid collector of documents
relating to American Jewish
history.
Youth’s computer caper
runs afoul of Israeli law
<*
American
Heart
Association
WE'RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A 17-
year-old who used his expertise
with computers to plant a false
story in the mass circulation
daily Yediot Achronot, was given
two years’ probation by a Haifa
youth court Tuesday and ordered
by Judge Aharon Melamed to
donate his computer hardware
and software to the National
Center for the Deaf. He was also
ordered to teach the deaf how to
operate computers in lieu of a
prison sentence.
The youth, who was not iden
tified because of his age, man
aged last June to access the com
puter line of Yediot Achronot’s
New York correspondent, Yaa-
cov Eilon. He planted a story,
ostensibly from Eilon, that a
former teacher of his and another
Haifa resident headed a large
drug smuggling network in the
United States.
The story made the front page
of the newspaper. When it was
shown to be false, the police were
called in and traced the youth,
who had also accessed the lines
of other computer users.
photography
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