Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1985-01-31

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iJW// Serving Columbus and Central Ohio Jewish Community for Over <0 Years     Vw/\\\
VOL.63   NO. 5
JANUARY 31,1985-SHEVAT 9
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideals
gSHSttE
Fund Established To
Help Texas Woman
Receive transplant
Congregation Beth El, of
Fort Bend County, in Texas,
has established a fund to;
. raise money to help a Jewish
member of their community
receive a life-saving liver
transplant.
Ellen Gordon Woodall resides in Missouri City,
Texas, with her teenage
sons. She has been told by
federal and state officials
that funding is not available
for transplants in adults.
The 42-year-old Woodall is
considered an excellent
candidate for the transplant
and should have a complete
recovery from her liver disease following the surgery.
Those who wish to help
Woodall through Beth El's
philanthropic effort in her
behalf can send donations
to: The Beth El-Ellen
Woodall Fund c/o Congregation Beth El, P.O. Box 668,
Missouri City, Texas, 77459;
Attn: Sara Scheiner.
LIBRARY, OHIO HISTORICAL SOC4-£/l%.
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U.S. Department Of Education Official
Deplores Erosion Of 'Christian Values'
Carole Genshaft
SUPER SUNDAY
Raises $155,442
"$155,442, from 1,535 contributors, was raised on
SURER SUNDAY-'85,"
according to Carole Genr
shaft, chairwoman. "Feder-.
ation's phonathon was an
outstanding success —
thanks to so many, both
volunteers and contributors," she continued.
On Jan. 27, more than 150
volunteers phoned 1,500 Columbus area homes on behalf of the 1985 United Jewish Fund Campaign.
YORK (JTA) - Robert Billings, a former official of the
Moral Majority who is now
director of the regional liaison office of Department of
Education (DOE) in Washington, is the author of the
speech, mailed by a DOE regional director in Denver to
six western states, which
deplored the erosion of
"Christian values" in American public schools, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has
learned.
Billings, a former executive director of the Moral
Majority, has been described as the "Christian
Right's inside man" in the
Reagan Administration, according to Congressional
sources. These sources asserted that Billings, who
identifies himself as a doctor, received his doctorate
from a Tennessee correspondence  school  since  shut-
Pianist David Bar-Man To Give Recital
At Congregation Tifereth Israel March 12
World-renowned pianist
David Bar-Illan will appear
in recital at Congregation
Tifereth Israel on Tuesday,
March 12, at 8 p.m. The program, part of the congregation's ongoing series, "A
Celebration of Jewish
Music," will include works
by Jewish composers and on
Jewish themes. Details will
be announced shortly.
Bar-Illan has reigned
"among the greatest of the
great" ever since he made
his debut performance with
Leonard Bernstein and the
New York Philharmonic in
I960 at the behest of conduc-'
tor, Dmitri Mitropoulos. ' '-■ ■
Bar-Illan has appeared
with almost all of the major
orchestras of the United
States, including those of
New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland,
Detroit, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and others,
as well as European orchestras such as the Concertge-'
bouw of Amsterdam and the
Berlin Philharmonic. In addition to these, he has made
annual sold-out recital tours
of the United States/Canada,
Europe, South America and
■ Israel.
' Bar-Illan . was born in
Haifa, Israel, where he received his initial musical
training before coming to the
United States as a scholarship student. He graduated
from both The Juilliard
School and the Mannes College of Music.
Bar-Illan's appearance at
Congregation Tifereth Israel
is part of an on-going series,
"A Celebration of Jewish
Music." The concert series
was originally conceived by
Cantor Jack Chomsky and
has been carried out through
the efforts of a committee
co-chaired by Renee Levine
and Geri Ellman. Also serv-
. ing on the committee are
Judy Blair, Jerry Fineberg,
Ruth Portugal, Marilyn Skilken, Joan Wallick, Janet
Yaillen, - Jennie  Zeidman,
and  Arthur  Flicker  and
Rabbi Harold Berman.
Tickets are available for
$7.50, with students/seniors
tickets priced at $5. All seats
are reserved. Tickets may
be ordered by mailing a
check payable to Congregation Tifereth Israel to the
synagogue at 1354 E. Broad
St., Columbus, Ohio 43205.
For further information, call
the synagogue at 253-8523.
JNF, Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center
To Hold Tu B'Shevat Celebration
The Jewish National Fund
and the Israel/Judaic department of the Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center will hold a
Tu B'Shevat celebration on
Sunday, Feb. 3, at the Jewish
Center beginning at 1 p.m.
The entire community is invited to attend.
This year's celebration
will consist of the Jewish National Fund Annual Student
Art/Poetry contest with contestants participating from
all the - religious and day
schools in Columbus. A Tu
B'Shevat seder, with the traditional refreshments, will
be one of the highlights oi
this year's celebration and is
being coordinated by Rita
Redfern, the Jewish Center
chairwoman for the Tu
B'Shevat program. Certificates for trees to be planted
in Israel will be available
during the festivities.
"The purpose of this program," states Wendy
LeVine, who with Rhonda
Brazina is Jewish National
Fund chairwoman, "is to in
volve increasing numbers of
children in'a personal and
tangible way in the redemption of Israel."
The theme, "From Sand to
Land, the Birth of an Idea —
a Century of Growth," commemorates the idea that led
to the creation of the Jewish
National Fund—to purchase
the land in the Jewish homeland and to reclaim and resettle the land for all Jews.
The holiday of Tu B'Shevat, "The New Year of the
Tree," has great significance in Israel where it symbolizes the resettlement of
the land. Last year, on Tu
B'Shevat, hundreds of thousands of children and adults
turned out at the Jewish National Fund planting sites
throughout Israel to plant
trees with their own hands.
Since 1948, the Jewish National Fund, Israel's "sole
agency for land development, has been responsible
for the planting of more than
160 million trees.
down! by state officials after
it was labeled a "diploma
mill." Billings could not be
reached for comment.
Billings' role as author of
the speech distributed by
Thomas Tancredo, head of
the DOE's regional office for
western states in Denver
surfaced last week as Jewish
community organizations
along with Rep. Patricia
Schroeder (D. Colo.) stepped
up criticism of Tancredo's
use of public funds to mail
the speech to Christian
schools, and inadvertently,
to an undetermined number
of Jewish schools.
The 12-page speech was attached to a cover letter,
signed by Tancredo, on DOE
stationary. The cover letter
described as a "dangerous
phenomenon" that "we see
more and more signs of
governmental intervention
into areas of parental
responsibility which have,
for centuries, been held inviolate." Tancredo invites
recipients of the letter to
"feel free to edit, reproduce
and distribute as you see
fit."
D.O.E. Brushes Aside
Criticism
The speech; which praised
Melvin L. Schottenstein Named
Beth Jacob 'Man Of The Year'
Melvin L. Schottenstein,
attorney and community
leader, will receive the
"Man of the Year" award
from the Beth Jacob Brotherhood at a special concert _
to be held March 3, at the
Beth Jacob Congregation.
According to/Philip Cohen,,
president of the B.J. Brotherhood, "Mr. Schottenstein
was chosen for his long time
special friendship with the
Beth Jacob Congregation
and his great leadership in
behalf of the Jewish community of Columbus, spearheading every important
campaign in behalf of our
people everywhere."
Jewish Federation and holds
many offices in other civic
and national organizations.
Rabbi David Stavsky will
present the award to Schottenstein "for his exemplary
efforts and dynamic leadership in behalf of the Jewish
community and for his
philanthropic deeds in behalf
of his Jewish brethren everywhere."      -
Irvin FIox, Cantorial Concert chairman, said, "This
will be a great evening to
pay tribute to one of Columbus' most favorite sons, a
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 4)
Christian schools and said
"godlessness" was taking
over in "this Christian nation," drew an angry
response from Schroeder,
who, while seeking an investigation of the use of
federal funds for the mailing, asking acting Secretary
of Education Gary Jones
whether this represented
"official policy of the Department of Education to
promote or establish a Christian nation."
DOE officials in Denver
and Washington brushed
aside Schroeder's criticism,
in separate interviews with
the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency. Greg Cunningham,
special assistant to the regional representative in
Denver, said the mailing of
the speech by his superior,
Tancredo, was not a reflec-
: tion of departmental policy.
Says Controversy Due To
Jewish 'Hyper-Sensitivity'
Cunningham blamed the
controversy, partly, on the
"hyper-sensitivity of certain
elements in the Jewish community." He did not identify
those elements. The "National Jewish Commission on
Law. and Public Affairs in
New York, which provided
the JTA with a copy of the
cover letter and the attached
speech, has written a letter
of protest to Secretary
Jones.
Israel's Law Of Return Amendment Defeated
Melvin L. Schottciibtcin
Schottenstein is a native
Columbusite, having graduated from Ohio State University in 1954 and received his
doctor of jurisprudence from
O.S.U. iii 1958. He is president of the law firm, Schottenstein, Zox and Dunn. He
is chairman of the Board of
Trustees of the Columbus
Chamber of Commerce and
chairman of the Board of
Trustees of the Leo Yassenoff Foundation. He is a member of the Board of Trustees
of the Agudas Achim Synagogue; Columbus Museum
of Art; Ohio Dominican College; Education Committee,
Children's Hospital; vice
president of the Columbus
JERUSALEM (JTA)—
The controversial amendment to the Law of Return
demanded by Israel's Orthodox religious establishment,
was defeated by a vote of
62-51 on its first reading the
Knesset last week.
The voting was largely
along party "lines. Labor
MKs opposed it, following
the lead of Premier Shimon
Peres who called the measure decisive. Likud joined
the religious bloc in support
of the amendment. But three
Likud Liberals broke ranks
to vote against it. Another
Likud MK abstained and five
were absent from the chamber.
The voting was preceded
and followed by acrimonious
debate that spilled into the
Knesset corridors after the
balloting. Members of the
different Orthodox factions
not only denounced the non-
religious MKs but traded insults with each other over
the defeat.
The amendment drew a
powerful response from non-
Orthodox religious and
secular Jews abroad, particularly in the United States,
when it was placed on the
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 7)
TU
B'SHEVAT
The New Year Of The Trees
Tree planting has become a living
symbol of the reclamation of
the Land of Israel.
Shevat 15 February 6
1