Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1988-05-05

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Ui BRAKY,   OHIO •HISTORICAL,. S
llW// Serv'"9 Columbus and Central Ohio Jewish Community lor Over 60 Years    Vk7/\R
V982  VELM/7 AVE.
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VOL.66   NO. 18
MAY 5, 1988-IYAR 18
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideals.
Cohn Elected To
National Office
Gerald N. Cohn, executive
vice president of Heritage
Village, has been elected to a
three year term to the House
of Delegates of the American
Association of Homes for the
Aging (AAHA).
Cohn was elected to this
post during the association's
recent spring symposium in
Washington; D.C.
AAHA is composed of over
2000 not for profit Protestant, Jewish and Catholic
homes and housing facilities
and services across the
country.
Heritage. Village is a
charter member of AAHA.
Both organizations started
operations about 25 years
ago.
"""****»*
ACCORDING TO THREE EXPERTS
Prospects For Mideast Peace Dim
Israel 40 Celebration Subject
Of Billboard On Main Street
The community's Israel 40 billboard is now up at
Main Street and James Road (going eastbound on
Main). Israel 40 Celebration activities are detailed in
this week's issue of the Chronicle.
NEW   YORK   (JTA),, -
Three experts on the Middle
East agreed here last week
that prospects for peace in -
the area are dim.
They cited the continued
Palestinian riots in the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip, the
division within Israeli
society and the lack of a reliable Arab partners to negotiate with Israel as the major
obstacles for reaching any
peaceful settlement in the
near future.
"The prospects for peace
in the Middle East in the
near future are dim at best,"
James Phillips, a senior
policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation asserted.
"I agree, the prospects are
remote," said Ambassador
Herbert Okun, deputy permanent representative of the
United States to the United
Nations. "When you look at.
the situation it's hard to be
optimistic."
Johanan Bein, acting permanent representative of
Israel to the United Nations,
said: "I also agree that prospects for peace in the region
are not bright, but I think the
overall prospects are better
than we can see now," considering the tremendous progress and achievements of
Israel and the Jewish people
in the last 40 years.
Bein, Okun and Phillips
FEATURE
Lag B'Oifter—The Thirty-Third Day
By Dvora Waysman
(©1988, WZPS)
Sometimes, when we are
expecting the visit of a dear
friend, we count the days to
his arrival, even marking off
each day as it passes on the
calendar. Similarly, we are
commanded in Leviticus
23:15 to count the days that
pass between Passover and
Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah
at Mount Sinai. It is written:
"And ye shall count unto you
from the morrow after the
day of rest, from the day ye
brought the sheaf of the
waving; seven weeks shall
there be complete; even unto
the morrow after thefeventh
week shall ye number 50
days; and ye shall present a
meal offering unto the
Lord;" 7
So from the second day of
Passover, we begin counting
the Omer. The Omer is
" simply Biblical Hebrew for a
' 'measure'' — in this case, of
barley. How. does one
actually count? Jewish
bookstores sell "sefirah.
counters" or you can mark
out the days on a calendar
and put it in a prominent
place so you won't forget.
The mood during the Omer
period, which lasts for seven
weeks, is one of semi-
mourning: weddings do not
take place, nor is one
supposed to cut one's hair,
buy new clothes or visit
places of entertainment.
There are various explanations, one being that this
Omer or sefirah period is a
time of apprehension,
anticipating receiving the
Torah at Mount Sinai at the
end of the 50 days which
culminate with Shavuoti
However, there is a break
in the semi-mourning on the
33rd day, called Lag b'Omer
or "Scholar's Day," which
falls on the Hebrew date of
18th Iyar. On this day, thousands upon thousands of
people flock by foot, in cars
and buses to the tomb of the
great teacher Simeon Bar
Yochai, in the remote town
of Meron in the mountains of
Galilee. It is the scene of
frenzied and joyous Lag
b'Omer celebrations, beginning when a huge bonfire is
lit at midnight. Women
throw silken scarves into the
flames, and the men sing
and dance rousing Hassidic
songs around the fire. They
also study the Zohar, the
holy book of mysticism attributed to Bar Yochai.
At dawn, the hues of crimson sunrise light up the
mountains and valleys as
praying begins anew. It is
traditional for three-year-old
boys to receive their first
haircuts at Meron on this
day, and their hair is cast into the flames, again with
much singing and dancing.
What began in Meron
quickly spread to other parts
of Israel, and bonfires on
Lag b'Omer have now become a traditional means of
celebrating the festival, with
children collecting wood for
weeks beforehand. Most Israeli families spend the eve
of Lag b'Omer singing
around a campfire, roasting
potatoes, while the more religious retell ancient stories
of Bar Kochba, Rabbi Akiva
and Bar Yochai.
For Bar Kochba and Rabbi
Akiva — one an outstanding
general, the other a famous
scholar — are also linked
with Lag b'Omer, going back
18 centuries, when, under the
leadership of these two great
men, Jews began to revolt.
against Roman tyranny. The
revolt lasted from 132-135 C.
E. and Rabbi Akiva was tortured to death, but the Jews
still refused to give up their
Torah. During Bar Kochba's
revolt, a terrible epidemic
struck Rabbi Akiva's students, and 24,000 young men
lost their lives. On Lag
b'Omer the epidemic suddenly ended, so festivity was
permitted on this one day
during the period of semi-
mourning. ::.
Simeon Bar Yochai, the,
great teacher, lived at this
same heroic period. Refusing to obey the Roman decree against teaching Torah,
he fled to the Galilee and hid
in a cave for 13 years, living
on the fruit of the carob tree.
Each year, on Lag b'Omer,
his pupils visited, him disr
gufeing themselves as hunters with bows and arrows.
Lag
dis
not
Demjanjuk Sentenced To Death
For His War Crimes At Treblinka
JERUSALEM (JTA) -
John Demjanjuk, the
Treblinka death camp guard
known as "Ivan the Terrible," was sentenced to death
last week.by the three-judge
Jerusalem district court.
"One thousand deaths
would not atone for your
crimes," Judge Zvi Tal said
to the guilty man, reading
for the unanimous sentence
of the bench.
The 68-year-old Demjan-
juk was found guilty on April
18 of crimes against the Jewish people, war crimes,
crimes against humanity
and crimes against a persecuted people.
The court decided on the
basis of evidence that the retired automobile worker
from Cleveland, Ohio, was
the Treblinka guard who
operated the gas chambers
were some 800,000 Jews
perished.
He was convicted under
the 1950 Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Law, which
carries the death penalty.
Under Israeli law, appeal to
the Supreme Court is mandatory. If this conviction and
sentence are upheld,, the sentence will be carried out in
about six months, by hanging-
Demjanjuk would be the
second war criminal executed under the law. Adolf
Eichmann was hanged in
Israel on May 31,1952.
In arguments before sentencing, State Attorney
Yonah Blattman maintained
that the death penalty was
mandatory under the Nazi
Collaborators Law. The
court preferred not to accept
that interpretation. It agreed
with Blattman that given the
conviction and the nature of
the crimes, its imposition of
the death penalty was discretionary.
Defense counsel declined
to argue for a lesser sentence on grounds that to do
so would imply an admission
of guilt.
Demjanjuk maintained
throughout his 15-month trial
that he was a victim of mistaken identity. He continued
to insist his innocence at the
sentencing.
j8ynag<^ueSer(rjlc«^W^.";I^    (continued on page i«
Bar Yochai died on
b'Omer and asked his
ciples to celebrate,
mourn, his death. It is at his
tomb that the Meron celebrations take place.
Lag b'Omer, all those centuries ago, commemorated a.
serious attempt to liberate
Israel from its oppressors.
But now, Israel is an independent state, a free nation
not under the domination of
Rome or any other tyrant.
Nevertheless, remembering
Lag b'Omer recalls a particularly heroic chapter in
Jewish history.
were participating in a panel
discussion on Mideast peace
prospects, sponsored by the
Jacob Goodman Institute for
Mideast Research and Information of the Zionist Organization of America.
Okun said that despite the
pessimistic outlook for the
near future, there are several encouraging facts in
today's Mideast.
'• Israel's military superiority in the region is overwhelming.
• Egypt, which maintains
"a cold peace" with Israel,
did not pull out its ambassador to Israel, despite the disturbances and violence in
the territories.
• The Soviet Union,
"which has learned some
lessons in Afghanistan,"
may no longer wish to play a
"spoiling role" in the Mideast and will not stand in the
way of a negotiated settlement.
Okun said that "it is not
clear at all" that the recent
peace initiative of Secretary
of State George Shultz is
going to succeed, mainly
because both Israel and the
United States are approaching general elections
and the continued uprising in
the West Bank and Gaza.
"The violence (in the territories) has shown that there
is a strong and growing
Palestinian conscience," he
said. A way has to be found
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 16)
Professor Simon Dinitz To Present
Louis Nemzer Memorial Lecture
The planning committee
for the Louis Nemzer Memorial Lecture has announced that Professor Simon Dinitz will present the
lecture "Prisons for Profit"
on Thursday evening, May
12.
In The Chronicle
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Community Calendar,
Editorial Features...
Here And There ...'.,,,..,. 9
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Obituaries^ ,.-,*.,«..»».* /j»
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Simon Dinitz
This program has been
planned as the first annual
lecture to be given in memory of Professor Louis
Nemzer who was a member
of The Ohio State University
Political Science Faculty
from 1948 until 1976. Professor Nemzer, an expert in
Soviet-American Relations,
was active with the Jewish
Community Relations Committee, organized interfaith
dialogue groups and was "a
faculty advisor, to the Hillel
Foundation. Th|0 lecture is
sponsored by the Professor
Louis Nemzer Memorial
Fund which was established
upon his death to sponsor
lectures by outstanding Jew- !
ish faculty at OSU.
Professor Dinitz received
his Ph.D from the University
of Wisconsin in 1951 and immediately joined the Sociology Department at OSU. A
prolific author of 16 books
and over 150 articles Dr. Dinitz is a recognized authority
in the field of crimonology
and corrections. In addition
to his years of activity with
the OSU Jewish community,
Professor Dinitz has taught
in Israel four times, and is a
past faculty advisor of the
Hillel Foundation.
The lecture will be presented at 8:00 p.m. at the
B'nai B'rith HUlel Foundation, 46 E. 16th Ave. preceded by dinner at 6:30 p,m.
For further information or
reservations please call
Gilda at 294-4797.
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