Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1982-10-28

              Guest speakers at key sessions of .the United Jewish Appeal East Central Region Conference hosted by Columbus Jewish Federation this weekend are (1. to r.) Carl Levin,
Wolf Blitzer and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Community Invited To Attend
UJA Conference This Weekend
The Columbus Jewish Federation is hosting the United
Jewish Appeal East Central
Regional Conference from
Friday, Oct. 29, through Sunday, Oct. 31, at the Downtown Sheraton.
Community leaders from
Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and throughout Ohio will
be in Columbus.
The entire Columbus Jewish community is invited to
attend Conference programs
which feature speakers of
national and international
reputation.
Program highlights
include;
• Shabbat Dinner, which
will be held on Friday, Oct.
29, at 6:30 p.m. at a cost of
$17 per person. The guest
speaker will be Dr. Michael
Berenbaum, Professor of
Religion at George Washington University. He will
address the topic, "Confronting Jewish Morality." An
Oneg Shabbat and Israeli
dancing will follow.
• Saturday Luncheon,  at
$12 per person, which will be
held at 11:30 a.m. and will
feature Gordon Zacks, who
will discuss the "Geo Political Situation in the Middle
East—Today and Tomorrow." Following lunch, there
will be a panel discussion,
"Israel, American Jewry,
Media," moderated by Ira
Kane. Panel members will
be Wolf Blitzer, Washington
correspondent for the Jerusalem Post; Dr. Michael
Berenbaum and Charney
Bromberg, Associate Director NJCRAC.
- • A- Cocktail- Reception
hosted by the Columbus Jewish Federation held at the
Ohio Theatre from 7-8 p.m.
• Dinner at the Agudas
Achim Congregation at 8:30
p.m. at a cost of $22 per person. It will feature The
Honorable Carl Levin,
United States Senator from
Michigan, as guest speaker.
• Brunch on Sunday, Oct.
31, from 10:30 a.m.-12 noon
at which Benjamin
Netanyahu, Israel Minister
Plenipotentiary, will speak.
The cost is $10 per person.
"The Conference will offer
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)
WARSAW (JTA)-Despite
the problems that beset our
nation, our Jewish community does not suffer extra
hardship," averred Shmuel
Tenenblatt, the 'youngish,
pleasant-faced editor of the
Folks-Sztyme, a Jewish
newspaper that has been
published here week in and
week out through the years.
"The attitude of the government toward our Jewish
people is quite benevolent
and positive," Tenenblatt
claimed. Indeed, government policies appear to be
most constructive in a literal
sense. Governmental agencies, including the Historical
Landmark Commission, are
busy  reconstructing  the
BBW Menorah Event
Scheduled For Sunday
elude Thelma Goldberg and
Irene Daroe. Chapter chairwomen responsible for coordinating the advertising aspect are Nancy Heller,
Avodah; Lee Goodman,
Candlelight; Irene Daroe,
Twin Rivers; Susan Guggen-.
heimer and Pauline Eisenman, Zion, and Jean Robbins, Masada. Recipe chairwoman is Rhoda Glass.
Mike Harden, columnist of
the Citizen-Journal, will be
the featured program, Leslie
Mendelsohn, who just returned from Israel, will
speak of her visit to the Children's Home.
For further information,
call Sheryl Heit (866-9156).
Mrs. Bessie Folkman will
be the Honoree of the Day at
the 1982 B'nai B'rith Women
Menorah Event for the Children's Home in Israel. It will
be held this Sunday, Oct. 31,
-at-ll-:30a.m. at the.Winding.
Hollow Country Club.
Each donor attending will
be the recipient of the 1982-83
Ad Book, incorporating recipes and a calendar format
so that it can be used as a
date book throughout the
year.
Bobbie Benjamin has been
serving as Ad Book chairwoman and typist for B'nai
B'rith Women's council of •
Columbus. Those assisting in
the assembly of the book in-
large Nossek Synagogue, located in the former ghetto
and destroyed by the Nazis
on May 17, 1943. They are
also restoring the Jewish
Historical Institute, which
was left in a shambles under
prior governments.
The Ida Kaminska
Theater, now housed in a
handsome, well-equipped
building in the center of town
and performing the plays of
Peretz, Sholem Aleichem
and others, is supported by
public funds. The Joint Distribution Committee is permitted to bring in kosher
food for consumption in
homes and in one or two restaurants.
Despite the lack of formal
relations between the governments of Poland and Israel, the Hebrew language
may be studied at the University of Warsaw. Cultural
and other educational ties
between the two countries
are quietly fostered.
Seeking Jewish Approval
It seems apparent that the
Polish government seeks
Jewish approbation, and
various departments, including ORBIS, the Polish National Tourist Agency, are
making all kinds of plans in
anticipation of April 9,
1983—the 40th anniversary of
the Warsaw Ghetto uprising—when it expects an
outpouring of thousands of
Jews from abroad to commemorate the most terrifying chapter in the history of
the city.
Remnant Of A Great
Jewish People
Of the 3.5 million Jews in
Abba Eban Says Israel Is in A State of Moral Anguish
TORONTO (JTA)-"Is-
rael is now in a state of
moral anguish. We are trying to weigh the losses and
gains of a very dramatic
summer. We have to ask:
have we really eliminated
the PLO? Was it worth the
loss of nearly 400 of our
young men to move the PLO
from Beirut to Damascus?"
This statement was made
here by Israel's former
Foreign Minister Abba Eban
in an address to 2,500 people
attending the opening session of B'nai B'rith International convention. Eban, now
a Labor Party member of
the Knesset, said there is a
division of opinion in Isreal
about issues arising from the
war in Lebanon.
"Diaspora Jews should
take pride in the fact that Israel is a pluralist democracy
and they (diaspora Jewry)
need not be afraid of stating
their own views on issues.
Diaspora Jews should not be
inhibited." Eban said the
dissent among Jews is
"about really two wars: the
war of the Galilee and the
war of Beirut. Each stands
in its own pattern of justification."
Nature Of The Dissent
He added that there was no
real dissent in Israel over
the war of the Galilee. ".lews
in the north (of Israe}) are
entitled not only to protection from attack, but also
from the threat of attack."
The dissent, Eban asserted, is over the war in
Beirut. "Those who favored
this ,war wanted to remove
the PLO, stabilize Lebanon,
elect a Lebanese President
and have peace from Lebanon to Egypt," he said. But
he added that he does not believe that the PLO has been
removed as a.threat.
Eban criticized world
leaders for sympathizing
with PLO chief Yasir Arafat
when they should be sympathizing with the Palestinian  people.  Arafat,' he
charged "is the author of
their suffering."
"We are learning about
the limited ability of war
to bring about peaceful,
objectives."
The Israeli diplomat said
there are two questions
about the war in Beirut: (1)
how not to lose it and (2) how
to bring it to a successful
conclusion.
,   He said that Lebanon is not
stabilizing. "You can trust,
that Lebanon will disinte-
. grate by the hand of its own
people. There is a total lack
of  national  solidarity.   Israel's function is not to re-
' build or stabilize 'Lebanon
but to insure the stability of
, Israel," Eban said. "We are
learning about the limited
aV.,'    .i   .;; !o i'i"'i"._ .i.rout
t, nin-t. ■% I1,..- I \ Vint
Hit: Media
Eban called the attempts
to exclude  Israel from
United Nations agencies
"monstrous" and "showing
complete contempt for the
UN Charter." He expressed
the hope that Canada would
join the United States in opposing this action.
Eban  also  assailed   the
news media for applying
"double values" in discussing Israel, stating that he
would have more respect for
press if it had shown equal
interest in terrorism and
killings in other parts of the
world.
Reagan To Decide Rumania's Status
WASHINGTON (JTA)-
President Reagan will decide this spring whether to
recommend the Most
Favored Nation (MFN)
trade status for Rumania
"not on Rumanian pledges
but Rumanian performances
on human rights issues''
such as emigration, State
Department spokesman
John Hughes said.
He noted that when congress was considering extension of MFN .for Rumania
last summer, the Rumanian
government promised to improve its emigration procedures and said it would
discuss the issue with U.S.
officials. Elliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for
Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs,, held discussions on emigration procedures in Bucharest Oct.
6-7.
Hughes said the talks
"made real progress but
reached no final accord, and
MFN for Rumania for next
year is not assured." He said
the two governments will
continue discussions "and
we will watch carefully to
see if the delays and harassment applicants for migration have fatted are now
being eliminated."
Peaceful
e Turmoil
Poland before the war, three
million were exterminated.
Jews had lived in Poland for
1,000 years and had played a
major role in the formation
of Poland. Today, according
to Tenenblatt, there are only
some 10,000 or 11,000 Jews
left, mainly elderly, since
the younger Jews emigrated
in 1968-69 during the era of
Wladyslaw Gomulka when a
campaign was waged
against "Zionists" and "revisionists."
Tenenblatt felt there were
actually a somewhat larger
number of Jews in the country but that many preferred
to live without Jewish identity. "It's so strange," he
said, "to see so many people
whom one would not have
thought to be Jewish coming
to shul on Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur. They
emerge on those days and
disappear for the rest of the
year."
He estimated that there
were 3,000 Jews in Warsaw,
about 1,000 in Cracow and
the rest in Lodz, Stettin,
Wroclaw and Katowice. In 14
cities and towns, Jews come
together under the auspices
of the Kultur Geseilschaft-
liche Verband to enjoy an occasional evening of Yiddish
and Israeli interest.
Tenenblatt insisted that
his Folks-Sztyme was the
leading unifying cultural
force among Jews. With a
staff of 15, he turns out a
large-format, well-illus-
trated paper with nine pages
in Yiddish—including a
regular column entitled
"Jews of the World"-and
three pages in Polish, and its
3,000 copies are eagerly devoured by the news-hungry
remnant of a great Jewish
people.