Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1989-11-30

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ZJIAV/^ Serving Columbus and Central Ohio Jewish Community for Over 60 Years
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4-3S11 COMP
VOL.67 NO. 49
NOVEMBER 30, 1989-KISLEV 2
Devoted to American
ahd Jewish Ideals.
Blood Drive Looking
For 325 Donors
The twice-yearly Jewish
Community Blood Donor
Drive will be looking for 325
donors Thursday, Dec. 21, at
the Leo Yassenoff Jewish
Center, 1125 College Ave.
Hours will be 12:30 to 6:30
p.m. «
This year marks the 40th
anniversary of the founding
of the Jewish Community
Blood Donor Council which
sponsors the drive under the
supervision of the Central
Ohio American Red Cross.
The Council is comprised of
representatives from over 50
area Jewish organizations
and is a beneficiary agency
of the Columbus Jewish Federation.   ■'- 7
During December, Red
Cross Blood Services need
10,000 donated pints of blood
to service 48 hospitals in 27
counties in greater central
Ohio. Type O blood collections must increase in
order for supplies to be adequate through the month of
December.
With less blood being given
in hospitals and an increasing number of donors
being turned away for medical reasons, willingness to
donate blood is more important now than ever
before. Call 231-3696 to set-up
an appointment. The drive is
open to anyone 17 years of
age and older, including senior citizens.
Soviet Jewish Exodus Challenge
For Absorption System In Israel
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NGJW Winter Luncheon Meeting
To Be Held At Center On Dec. 5
The Winter Luncheon meeting of National Council of
Jewish Women, Columbus Section, will be held on\
Tuesday, December 5,11:30 a.m. at the Leo Yassenoff
Jewish Center. Guest speaker will be Wolf Blitzer,
Washington Bureau Chief of the Jerusalem Post. Judy
Maybruck* past president of NCJW, will receive the
Hannah gTSalomon Award. Programming Committee
members are ,(17 to r.) P. J. Maybruck, Esther
Weisman and Marcie Gold. RSVP to Gold, 236-8381.
The couvert is $13 for members, $14 for non-members.
Babysitting arrangements may also be made with
Gold. For further information, call the NCJW office,
235-4133.1
JERUSALEM (JTA) -
Large-scale immigration
from the Soviet Union, long
fought for and joyfully anticipated, is raising serious
challenges for Israel's
creaky absorption machinery, now that the exodus
seems likely to materialize.
The major concerns are
money and housing for an
expected influx of 100,000
Jews from the Soviet Union
in the next few years, which
may coincide with a surge of
olim from Ethiopia.
The Association of,. Building Contractors warned that
the newcomers are likely to
find themselves living "in
tent cities" because of the
continuing recession in the
construction trades.
Mordechai Yonah, presi
dent of the association, said
he has been urging the government for months to take
certain measures, but to no
avail.
For example, the Finance
Ministry is not offering financial inducements to contractors to build more housing faster, Yonah said.
The Industry and Commerce Ministry has not approved price increases for
specific services in the building trades, which the
builders insist are justified.
And the Labor Ministry has
not solved the shortage of
manpower in the construction industry.
Insofar as the construction
industry is one of the largest
employers of Arab labor
from  the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, it is hostage to
the intifada.
Finally, the contractors
want all of the government
departments involved with
the problem to establish an
"emergency forum" with
planning and supervisory
powers.
The government is at odds
with the Jewish Agency for
Israel over absorption financing.
Finance Minister Shimon
Peres flatly rejected a proposal that the Treasury float
a "voluntary loan" from the
tax payers to help pay for the
absorption of Soviet Jews.
The proposal was offered
by Uri Gordon, chairman of
the Jewish Agency's Immigration and Absorption
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
Shamir's Appeal For Solidarity Challenged By Jewish Leaders
NEW YORK - Putting out
a call for Jewish unity,
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told more than'
150 Jewish organizational
leaders recently that it is
"imperative" to the*success
of the peace process for Jews
in both Israel and the
Diaspora to stand together in
solidarity.
Resurgence Of Polish Anti-Semitism Sparks
Concern In Jewish Community
LONDON (JTA)— Poland's tiny Jewish communityis
deeply concerned with resurgent anti-Semitism, even as
momentous political change is takinff>piace, an expert on
Eastern Europe reported here last week. Dr. Lukasz
Hirszowicz, of the London-based Institute for Jewish Affairs,
said the democratic changes in Poland have had no effect on
right-wing groups, which are "heirs to the anti-Jewish tradition of Polish politics." What worries Polish Jewry, according to Hirszowicz, is not the anti-Semitism alone, but that it
has been met by silence from the Polish Communist Party
and its affiliates. Anti-Semitic propaganda is being
disseminated vin complete freedom all over the country,
without a word of criticism from the Communists, he said.
German fined For Maligning Jew
WEST BERLIN (JTA) - - An employee of the West German
Red Cross chose to pay a fine of 2,000 marks ($1,086) rather
than apologize for calling a doctor at a Jewish home for the
aged a "Jewish pig." The choice was offered by a Frankfurt
court. The incident occurred in December 1988. The doctor
wrote to the president of the West German Red Cross, Prince
Botho zu Sayn Wittgenstein, ivho promised to fire the
employee; But a year later, the offender still had his job.
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Israeli To Head Medical Group
TEL AVIV( JTA) - - Dr. Ram Ishai will tesign as chairman
of the Israel Medical Association at the end of this month to
become the first Israeli to head the World Medical Association, He was elected president of the international body at its
last annual meeting in Vienna a year ago. Ishai, who headed
the IMA tor Vt> years, was born in Tunisia, raised and
educated in France and studied family medicine at.the Paris
Sorbonne before settling in Israel in 1950.
But as he received questions and comments from
members of the Conference
of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations, it became apparent,
as it had been during the
course of Shamir's visit to
the United States, that unity
and consensus among
American Jewish leaders
has become as slippery and
elusive as among Israeli
politicians.
Immediately after his speech, Shamir was told flatly
by Henry Siegman, executive director of the
American Jewish Congress,
that American Jewish
organizations are as divided
over the issue of "land for
peace" as Israel, and that
the unqualified .support
Shamir sought from
American Jews does not ex-
ist<today."
So, Siegman asked, "can
you ask us to pretend that
there is a total and complete
unity?"        .-.-
Siegman's .question reflected an atmosphere in the
Jewish organizational world
that may have made
Shamir's time with American Jews almost as uncomfortable as his meetings
at the White House.
Throughout his week in the
United States, parts of the
American Jewish community made it clear, both
publicly and privately, that
they were unhappy with
many of Shamir's unyielding
positions on the" peace process."
At the same time, there
are still many Jewish
leaders who believe that
American Jews should support the Israeli prime
minister as much as possible
and should not dwell on their
differences, particularly in
public.
Even before Shamir's arrival in Washington, the Conference of Presidents became tangled over an advertisement that was to appear, in "The Washington
Post" when he got there.
The original draft of the
advertisement specifically
expressed support for positions held by Shamir, such
as his refusal to talk to the
Palestine Liberation Organization and his demand that
negotiations with a Palestinian delegation must be
limited to election procedures. „
Several groups, including
the American Jewish Con*
gress, American Jewish
Committee and the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, asked for revisions
in the ad.
Unable to change the
language to all of their members' satisfaction in time to
meet newspaper deadlines,
the umbrella organization
was only - able t6 publish a
very general statement
wishing Shamir luck in his
talks With the Bush administration. Having missed the
"Washington Post" deadline
completely, the ad ran in
','The New York Times."
But pn the same day, an
advertisement similar to the
original statement appeared
in the "Times," under the
-auspices of B'nai B'rith
International, whose president, Seymour Reich, also
chairs the Conference of
Presidents.
Another sign of dissent
occurred at the 58th General
Assembly of the Cpuncil of
Jewish Federations in
Cincinnati, where Shamir
arrived to encounter aletter
signed by 41 prominent fundraisers telling him not to
"mistake courtesy for consensus, or applause for endorsement" of his policies.   "'
Shamir chose to dismiss
these rumblings in his comments to the Israeli press.
He brushed aside the Cincinnati letter, telling Israeli reporters that "despite all of
the unpleasant tones of the
people who see only the bad,
the support of the American
Jewish community is massive, even more than in'the
past."
He added that "if there are
here and there some groups
whose profession it is to criticize Israel's government,
their influence is less and
less."
"The American Jewish
masses support the national
unity government and, I
might add, the position of the
prime minister," he said. "I
have more and more proof of
this every day."
Shamir was more circumspect when addressing the
issue during his speech at
the Conference of Presidents, hinting only that he
would prefer receiving criticism from American Jewry
in a less public fashion.
"We are open to the views
and_ thoughts    of   our
brethern," Shamir said,
"preferably directly and not
via the front pages of 'The
New York Times.'"
His remark provoked
chuckles in the audience.
Both Reich and Malcolm
Hoenlein, the'executive director of the Conference of
Presidents, deny that consensus among American
Jewish leaders is becoming
more difficult to achieve.
"If we had more time,"
Reich said, "we could have
worked out language that
was more acceptable" to
members of the umbrella-
group when putting together
the newspaper advertisement.
But others said that there
is a growing polarization
among American Jewish
leaders oh the peace issue.
"The American Jewish
community inevitably reflects what is happening in
Israel itself," said Rabbi
Alexander Schindler, president of the UAHC. "The
government there is divided
on fundamental issues; you
have that divergence here as
well."
Shamir's perception that
the bulk of American Jewry
is  behind  him,  however,
i must have been strongly re-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
OJC HAS MOVED!
New Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 30965
Columbus, OH 43230
Offices At:
2862 Johnstown Rd"
Columbus, OH 43219