Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1987-07-30

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VOL.65   NO.31
JULY30.1987-AV4
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideals.
Beverly Schottenstein
To Host Israel Bonds
Women's Div. Kick-Cft
Beverly Schottenstein will
host the 1987 Women's Division Kick-Off Breakfast at
her home, 30 N. Drexel Ave.,
on Thursday, Aug. 6, at 9:30
a.m.
"We are excited that a
member of the National
Board, recently returned
from Israel, will be with us
to let us know about the new
possibilities of investments
in Israel," stated Schottenstein.
Dorothy Rubenstein, 1987
Women's Division chairwoman, added, "The Kick-
Off Breakfast will launch the
. Women's Division 1987 Campaign, and I urge all women
in the community to attend
this informative meeting
and help support Israel
through the Israel Bond program."      .        '
For reservations, contact
State of Israel Bonds office,
239-7212.
U.S. Jewish Leaders Mount Effort
To Stop Changes In Law Of Return
Applications Available For Sr. Olympics
Applications are now available for the 1987 Senior
Olympics, to be held at the Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center on Sept. 6 and 7. The event, sponsored by Saint Anthony Medical Center, The Columbus Dispatch, Pension Plans Incorporated and the Leo Yassenoff Jewish
Center, features athletic competition in a range of
sports for men and women 55 years of age and older.
Competition will be held in golf, bowling, darts, tennis,
swimming, track and field and a host of other events.
Awards will be given to the first, second and third
place finalists in each event for each age division, men
and women. Age divisions range from 55-59 to 95-100.
The registration fee is $8. Co-chairmen for the event
are David Derrow and Irvin Flox. For an application
or to sign up as a Senior Olympics volunteer, contact
the Jewish Center's Health and Physical Education
Department at 231-2731.
NEW YORK (JTA) -
American Jewish leaders
becoming increasingly
alarmed at the prospect of
the Israeli government passing legislation which would
alter the definition of a Jew
under the Law of Return
have mounted an intensive
effort to stem such changes.
A delegation of American;
and Canadian leaders from
the.top fund-raising organizations for Israel, the United
Jewish Appeal and United
Israel Appeal, led by Sho-
shana Cardin, president of
the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF), left for Israel last Sunday, three days
in advance of a scheduled
vote in the Knesset on the
issue.
Cardin told the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency last
week that should the measure pass, Reform and Con
servative Jews would very
likely reevaluate their political, financial and psychological support for Israel. In
practice, she said, this could
mean less travel to Israel
and less encouragement for
their youth to go on programs in Israel. But Cardin
stressed that '*we don't want
to talk about the what if, we
want to avoid that." She
added, "No one voice speaks
for the totality."
The decision to send a
delegation immediately was
taken July 22 in a closed-
door session at CJF headquarters here by representatives of UJA, UIA, CJF, the
National Jewish Community
Relations Advisory Council,
the Jewish Agency and four
of the largest local Jewish
Federations. The move reflects the profound concern
in the North American Jew-
ON ISRAEL'S SECURITY
Pollard
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is
a letter addressed la Robert A. Cohn,
editor-in-chief of the St. Louis Jewish
Light, from Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Navy analyst, who is serving
a life sentence at the federal facility at
Springfield, Mo. for having sold
secrets to the Israeli government. The
letter is dated 2 Tammuz 5747, June 29,
1987. As a Jewish prisoner in Missouri,
Pollard receives the SI. Louis Jewish
Light. The views herein are entirely
those of Pollard. Below Is the lirst portion of that letter. Reprinted by permission from the St. Louis Jewish
Light.
Although I have long debated about whether or not I
should write to you, something I read in the news-
- paper today decided the
issue for me. The administration's recently announced
plan to grant Egypt copro-
duction rights for the MI, the
army's top of the line main
battle tank, seemed to confirm all of my worst fears
about the true nature of Mr.
Defense Secretary Caspar
W. Weinberger's Middle
East agenda. In many respects, this tank deal seems
emblematic of his notorious
' 'even-handedness " policy
for the region, which over
the course of five long years
I had the dubious honor of
watching unfold before my
eyes. Indeed, it was my implacable opposition to this
policy which eventually precipitated my involvement
with the Israelis.
Stripped of its Cold War
camouflage, the Weinberger
doctrine hopes to keep Israel
on the strategic defensive by
creating a more "equitable"
balance of power between
her and the surrounding
Arab states. While some people are slowly recognizing
the fact that this policy has
I peen the force behind Mr'.
Out In Letter From Prison
Weinberger's indefatigable
push for increased arms
sales to such "moderate"
Arab countries as Saudi
Arabia, Jordan and Egypt,
what has gone largely unnoticed, however, has been;
his parallel attempt to severely restrict the flow of
Vital intelligence to Israel. In
addition to significantly •
enhancing the effectiveness
of all the new Eastern Bloc
military equipment currently pouring into the armories of Syria, Iraq and Libya,
this little known, undeclared
intelligence embargo is also
intended to deny Israel the
type of information needed
for her to undertake diplomatically controversial but
militarily essential operations against a whole spectrum of targets ranging from
distant terrorist bases, like
the  PLO  headquarters  in
' Tunis, to others which one
day might pose a direct
threat to the very survival of
the Jewish State. In Mr.
Weinberger's opinion,
though, by restraining Israel's '."irresponsibly" aggressive behavior towards
her neighbors, his policy
would facilitate a new era in
U.S.-Arab relations^ There
are, of course, other implications of Mr. Weinberger's
geopolitical initiative which
are not so "positive."
In the event this policy was
successfully implemented
and a situation analogous to
June 1967 were to recur, it is
assumed that Israel would
probably be unable to launch
a cost effective conventional
• preemptive striker against1
the Arab armies massing
along her frontier. Israeli
decision makers would,
therefore, be left in the unenviable position of having to
choose between "a heinous
war or a shameful peace,"
represents the view of a disgruntled, extremist faction
within the military elite
since Egyptian strategic
policy had traditionally
stressed that the country's
first line of defense should
In his first statement to an American Jewish
newspaper, Jonathan Jay Pollard assails the
Administration's decision to sell Egypt the top
U.S. tank. *
which is precisely the type of
excruiciating dilemma that
Mr. Weinberger feels would
make them more receptive
to "legitimate" Arab political grievances. What is
clearly apparent, then, is
that Mr. Weinberger's objective of creating a so-called
"level battlefield" in the region would, if realized, eliminate the Israeli army's military superiority over the
Arabs which has traditionally served to deter the more
belligerent elements within
their camp.
If seen within this context,
the significance of the proposed MI deal cannot be
overemphasized since it
would finally provide Egypt
with the means by which she
could rapidly remilitarize
Sinai and that, Mr. Cohn, is a
certain eventuality as far as
the Egyptian staff, is concerned. Apart from nature's
abhorrence of a vacuum, the
Egyptian officer corps
firmly believes that it was
robbed of its victory in 1973
by being diplomatically pre1
vented from reoccupying the
entire Sinai: peninsula in
force. This' pdsitiori 'hardly
run from Baza to Beersheba
and that the Neger, abandoned in 1948, is the territorial avenue through which
Egypt can manifest her
rightful role in the Arab
world. However, balancing
his exaggerated sense of
injured national pride is the
rather sober realization that
until the Egyptian army replaces all of its old Soviet
supplied equipment with up
to date American or European arms it will be unable
to assert what it considers to
be its legitimate rights in
. Sinai. Although Mr. Weinberger is fully aware of his
revanchist sentiment he has,
nevertheless, done everything in his power to satisfy
even the most extreme and
unjustified Egyptian request
for arms since he regards
the creation of a completely
modernized Egyptian military establishment as the
basis of a hew regional balance between Israel and
Syria: i.e. it is hoped that
greatly improved Egyptian
army would pose such a latent threat to the Negev that
. the Israelis would be prevented from concentrating
the type of overwhelming
force necessary to crush
Syria in a short, decisive
campaign comparable to her
stunning 1982 victory.
These kinds of lopsided Israeli victories are particularly galling to Saudi Arabia
which views them as an insult to Arab honor, a cause of
Arab political radicalism,
and an open invitation for
further Soviet meddling in
the area. Mr. Weinberger
evidently shares this warped
perspective and avidly
backs the contention that
peace will prevail as long as
Israel is militarily stymied.
Bearing in mind, though, the
Soviet Union's publicly articulated pledge to guarantee
the principle of Syrian
strategic "parity" with Is-r
rae! it is not entirely clear
how Mr. Weinberger's
intended hobbling of the Israeli army could possibly
serve to curb either Mr. Assad's territorial ambitions in
Lebanon or his long sought
dream of reconquering the
Golan Heights by force of
arms.
The only to resolve this apparent flaw in Mr. Weinberger's policy is to see the
issue of war and peace
through Saudi eyes since
they have largely shaped the
secretary's highly skewed
appreciation of Middle East
political dynamics. According to Riyadh, the real threat
to regional stability is posed
by Israel's "reckless" abuse
of her military superiority,
which in turn has permitted
. the, Russians to gain a foot-
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 11)
ish community over the
"Who is a Jew?", debate
within Israel.
A Political, Not
A Religious Issue
Small, ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset have attempted for years to push
through amendments to the
Law of Return which grants
automatic Israeli citizenship
to all Jews. The small
parties want the law to stipulate that a convert must go
through a halachic conversion to qualify for the automatic citizenship.
The issue has become
political rather than religious, said Cardin. The
smaller religious parties,
threatening to pull out of
their traditional alliance
with the Likud and vote.with
Labor to dissolve the unity
government, have effectively pressured Likud
into supporting the proposed
changes. This was reflected
in the July 8 votes when
Likud almost unanimously
voted- for the two amendments. The amendments
were narrowly defeated.
Shamir had pledged to the
ultra-Orthodox Shas party
several months ago that
Likud would "do all in its
power" to pass a bill introduced by Shas to empower
the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate to approve conversions.
"The number of votes for
the amendment has increased over the years,"
Cardin told the JTA following the closed meeting. "It is
possible that special pressure now is being brought to
bear?'
The delegation's goal, according to Cardin, is to convince both major parties to
remove the "Who is a Jew?"
issue from their political
agendas permanently.
Passing the amendments
"would delegitimize and disenfranchise hundreds of
thousands of Jews," Cardin
said. She referred to the
numbers of North American
Jews affiliated with the Reform and Conservative
movements who have the
perception that they "do not
. fit in" in the Jewish state.
"This could well erode support for the State of Israel —
something we cannot tolerate," she said.
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