Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1989-08-03

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^feONICLE
Serving Columbus and Central Ohio Jewish Community lor Over 60 Years
JtSL
VOL.67   NO. 31
AUGUST 3, 1989-AV 2
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideal*.
Ohio   Hist. Society  Libr-
:198£   Velrna  five.
Columbus,   Ohio
43211 COMP
New Figures Show Jewish Population Shift
Bush Nominee 'Cautiously Optimistic'
That Pope Will Recognize Israel Soon
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Bush's nominee for
ambassador to the Vatican said recently that he was "cautiously optimistic" that Pope John Paul II would eventually
grant diplomatic recognition to* Israel. Thomas Patrick
Melady, the ambassadordesignate, made those comments at
his July 19 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee.
Swiss Agree To Extradite Ex-Nazi
GENEVA (JTA) — The Swiss Justice Ministry and police
said they have given orders to extradite convicted Nazi Gottfried Weise to West Germany. Weise, 68, a former SS man
whose lethal target practice earned him the nickname ''William Tell of Auschwitz," apparently identified himself to
medical personnel at a hospital in the resort town of Thuri, in
the German part of Switzerland.
TV Program Canceled
For Praising Holocaust-Denial Book
TORONTO (JTA) — A television cable company in Winnipeg has canceled a regular show by a Christian evangelist
who urged his viewers to read a book denying the existence of
the Holocaust. Cliff Besson, an evangelist with his own half-
hour show called "Truth & Light," told his viewers that Web
' of Deceit, a book by Malcolm Ross, is "a good version of the
truth" about the Holocaust, In an interview with the Toronto
Globe A Ma,il, Besson further stated that the Holocaust was
exaggerated "in order to get more money for Israel." David
Matas, a civil rights lawyer and senior counsel for B'nai
B'rith Canada's League for Human Rights, and Manitoba
Liberal Party leader James Carr called for the cancellation
of the program. Canadian broadcasting regulations prohibit,
the broadcast of any comments that are likely to expose contempt for any ethnic group. A television company can lose its
license if such comment is permitted.
NEW YORK (JTA) -
American Jews are flocking
to the Sunbelt and the West
Coast, according to updated
population estimates contained in the 1989 American
Jewish Year Book, published
this week by the American
Jewish Committee and the
Jewish Publication Society.
Significant increases in
1988 in the Jewish popiuV
tions of such communities as
San Diego and the state of
Florida were matched by
Jewish population losses of
10 percent or more in many
, communities in the Northeast and Midwest.
Florida, with 596,100 Jews
comprising 5.i percent of the
state's population, regained
the number three spot
among the states with the
highest concentration of
Jews, behind New York and
New Jersey and ahead of
Massachusetts, Maryland
and the District of Columbia.
The total Jewish population of the United States in
1988 was estimated at
5,935,000, according to the
year book. That figure, is
down slightly from 1987 but
still represents 2.5 percent of
7 the overall U.S. population.
The population findings
are contained in an article
by researchers at the North
American Jewish Data Bank
in New York.
Their findings relied primarily on studies by local
Court Backs Non-Orthodox Converts,
Limits Role Of Non-Orthodox Rabbis
JERUSALEM (JTA) -
The "Who Is a Jew" issue
suddenly and dramatically
resurfaced last week, when
Israel's highest court ruled
that the Interior Ministry
must register non-Orthodox
converts as Jewish citizens.
Orthodox rabbis and politicians immediately called
for new legislation that
would reverse the court's
decision by specifying that
those accepted as citizens
under Israel's Law of Return
undergo Orthodox conversion.
The same Orthodox leaders welcomed a separate
High Court of Justice ruling,
also issued last week, in
whfch the justices flatly and
unanimously rejected efforts
by non-Orthodox rabbis to
gain official status as marriage registrars in Israel.
The ruling, on a case"
pressed by the World Union
for Progressive Judaism,
reaffirms that marriages
and pther matters of personal status remain exclusively in the hands of Israel's
Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.
v While the ruling is being,
M&tenWa«etbatkfor Jlefbrin-
and Conservative rabbis
here, the decision on the status of converts is a major
victory for non-Orthodox
movements, who have
fought efforts by the Orthodox establishment in Israel
to invalidate their conversion processes.
The 4-1 decision in effect
reaffirms the court's earlier
ruling in the case of Sho
shana Miller, a Reform convert who in 1986 gained the
right to be registered as a -
Jew on her nationality card.
In a summation of the
majority decision, the
court's president, Justice
Meir Shamgar, said Israel's
Interior Ministry had no
right by law to investigate
the tyjpe of conversion under-
gone'by a prospective immigrant.
CJHS Begins Ninth Year
Jewish community federations, but they warn that
population estimating is
"not an exact science."
Numbers may be adjusted
from year to year, for
instance, without there having been a demographic
change in a community.
For the latest study, the
researchers have adjusted
for such reasons as the number of non-Jewish spouses or
children in a household and
the number of part-time residents in a community.
The Columbus Jewish Historical Society continues to
grow in membership numbers and in servicess to
Columbus and central Ohio
Jewry,
During the past eight
years the Society has
widened its scope of concerns for obtaining local
Jewish history and has been
able to expand its projects
and undertakings.
Among the many endeavors that the CJHS is involved in are the following:
oral history tapings of local
t r?std,ei\t^, ,rqppsitorv  of,
* audio/visual-Holocaust Sur-'
vivors tapes; photographing
and documentation of Jewish ceremonial art, both in
local houses of worship and
private collections; establishment of a genealogy re-
source/research library;
acquisition of family and institutional memorabilia;
identification of old photographs ("Name that
Punim''); workshops;
seminars; public library
exhibits and displays; open
meetings with outstanding
guest speakers', and recipient of special grants. Most
of these.j^m^r^Hing?*^6
The latter factor is especially important in the Sunbelt, they report, where the
number of year-round residents is often over-counted.
But even when the figures
are adjusted for the so-called
"snowbirds" who summer in
the North, the figures on the
migration of Jews to the
South and West are revealing:
• In the San Diego metropolitan area, the Jewish
population estimate increased by 33,000 to a total of
Benjamin Zox Nominated
As Federation President
Ann's Hospital Foundation.
Zox and his wife, Julie,
have three children.
. Upon his election, Zox will
succeed B. Lee Skilken who
has served as Federation
president since 1987.
The Columbus Jewish Federation's Nominating Committee Chairwoman Miriam
S. Yenkin announces the
nomination of Benjamin L.
Zox for Federation president. Elections of the officers and board members for
1989-90 will occur during the
Federation's 63rd Annual
Meeting on Sunday evening,
Sept:~ 10, 7: 30 p.m., at
Congregation Tifereth Israel.
Long active and dedicated
to the Columbus Jewish community, Zox was the 1973
recipient of the Therese
Stern.Kahn Young Leadership Award as well as
general chairman of the 1981
Annual Jewish Community
Campaign. He has served on
such committees as Cash
Collections, Allocations
Steering, Young Leadership
Awards, Leadership Development and Resource Development. Zox's most recent
contributions to the Federation were as the chairman of
the Allocations Steering and
Study committees and The
Special Fund For Jewish
Identity. He has been arroffi-
cer of the Federation since
1982.
Zox is ah executive vice
president in the law firm of
Schottenstein, Zox and Dunn
and active in Columbus'
legal community as a member of the National Council of
the College of Law at Ohio
State University, a vice
president of the Columbus
Bar Foundation, past president of the Columbus Bar
Association, president-elect
of The Ohio State University
College of Law Alumni Association and fellow in the
Columbus, Ohio and American Bar Foundations.
His civic commitments
and associations also include
being past president and current board member of the
Winding Hollow Country
Club, past vice chairman
and board member of the
Franklin County United
Way,  past  president and
Benjamin L. Zox
Remaining nominated
officers for the 1989-90 year
are: Vice Presidents —
Edwin M. Ellman, Melvin L.
Schottenstein, Ellen Siegel
and Alan Wasserstrom;
Treasurer — Lawrence D.
Schaffer; Assistant Treasurer — Nelson Genshaft;
Secretary — Gary Robins;
Assistant Secretary —
Robert H. Schottenstein;
and Immediate Past President — B. Lee Skilken.
> The community is invited
to attend the Annual Meeting
to elect and meet the new
officers and board members.
For further information, call
237-7686.
Women's Caucus
Endorses HB609
The Columbus Area
Women's Political Caucus
has become the first Ohio
organization to endorse
HB609, sponsored by State
Representative Joan Lawrence, R-Galena. The two
sentence legislation codifies
into Ohio statute, the current
practice in Ohio related to
access to abortion. It states
that a woman may continue
70,000 between 1987 and 1988,
an 89 percent gain.
• The Jewish population in
Orange County, Calif., went
up 5,000 to 85,000 in the same
period. '    ,
• Florida's Jewish population went up by nearly 47,000
between 1987 and 1988, repre- -
senting an 8.5 percent jump.
The Florida cities with the
most significant increases
are Fort Lauderdale, up
3i;000 to a total Jewish population of 116,000, and Orlando, up 3,000 to 18,000.
• Ten Northeastern and
Midwestern communities
report Jewish population
declines of at least 10 percent between 1987 and 1988.
The largest absolute decline
by state occurred in New
York, with a loss of more
than 47,000 Jews.
Cleveland had a loss of
5,000 Jews, bringing its Jewish population estimate
down to 65,000, the largest
numerical decrease for a
local community.
New York is still on top of
the yearbook's ranking of
states with the highest Jewish concentration, , with
1,844,000 Jews comprising
10.4 percent of its general
population.  -
Consewative Women
Join'Women Of Wall'
JERUSALEM (JTA) -
Some 30 members of the
Women's League for Conservative Judaism joined the
local "Women of the Wall"
group last week in conducting a morning service at the
Western Wall.
Unlike on several previous
occasions, the women were
not harassed by mobs of
ultra-Orthodox men and
women, who do not believe
women should pray as a
group or sing in public.
Only two ultra-Orthodox
women tried to disturb the
women's prayers, which
were led by Marilyn Wor-
man, a middle-aged woman
who is a third-year rabbinical student at the Conservative movement's Jewish
Theological Seminary in
New York.
Worman, a kippah
perched on her short hair,
said afterwarcLthat she and
the other women had come
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 61
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