Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1989-12-14

              Oh i o   H i st. Boc i et y   i- i or-.
:l.96£   Ve'lrna   five, .
Columbus.    Ohio    '•
43£11 90MP
Serving Columbus and Central Ohio Jewish Community for Over 60 Years
VOL.67 NO. 51
DECEMBER 14, 1989-KISLEV 16
Devoted to American
and.Jewish Ideals.
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NEWS ANALYSIS
Middle East Peace Process Nudged Forward
Participating in Heritage Village's recent program
on Alzheimer Disease were Ronald Botts, executive
director, Alzheimer Association; Dr. Ronald Mervis,
The Ohio State University; Gerald N. Cohn, executive
vice president; Alan Weinberg, M.D., moderator, and
Irving Barkan, president.
Heritage Village Presents Nov. 20
On Alzheimer's Disease
Program
"In a recent survey in
Boston, it was discovered
that 10 percent of all respondents 1 over age 65 had
evidence of Alzheimer's Disease," stated Alan, Weinberg, M.D., moderator of
Heritage Village's recent
Community Awareness Program on Alzheimer's Disease. "Over age 85, 50 percent showed evidence of
symptoms of Alzheimer's
Disease.-This has become a
major public health concern,
certainly comparable to the
AIDS epidemic." Dr. Weinberg serves as vice president
of Heritage Village and chair
of the Village's Medical Advisory Committee.
A capacity audience was
in attendance for "Alzheimer's Disease: Drug
Intervention Strategies, Present Status and Future
Development," presented on
Nov. 20 at Heritage Tower.
In welcoming those present,
Irving Barkan, president,
explained that the program
had generously been co-
sponsored by the Heritage
Village Auxiliary and the
Schecter Alzheimer Disease
Research Fund of Heritage
Village.
Offering greetings on behalf of the Alzheimer Association, Columbus Chapter,
Director Ronald Botts noted
that the disease "robs the
mind long before it takes the
body. It's progressive, disabling and, at this time, irreversible." Eighteen support groups are established
within the Association's ten-
county region for the benefit
of Alzheimer victims and
their caregivers.
Guest Speaker. Ronald
Merivs, Ph.D., was introduced by Sylvia Schecter,
past president. Mervis is the
current director of the Brain
Aging and Dementia Research Group of The Ohio
State University, having
previously served on the
staff of the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine, Mt.
Sinai School of Medicine and
Cornell University.
Gerald N. Cohn, executive
vice president, concluded
"the evening by moderating a
question and answer period
and discussing the programs
and architecture of the
50-bed Alzheimer Wing of the
future' Wexner Heritage
House. The creation of the
Alzheiiner Wing will complete; the current expansion
program and be opened for
occupancy by latC 1990.
For additional information
on Alzheimer's Disease or
area support groups, Heritage Village invites the community to contact the Alzheimer Association, Columbus Chapter, at 481-8834.
By Gil Sedan
JERUSALEM (JTA) -
The Middle East peace process has been nudged forward, but whether it gets
anywhere seems to depend
on Israel's willingness to
overlook reservations attached by all of the parties.
The "yes, but" scenario
became apparent last week
when Washington announced
that Egypt had accepted
Secretary of State James
Baker's five-point proposal
for launching an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
Egypt's conditional acceptance of Baker's plan reflected Cairo's inability to
get the Palestine Liberation
Organization to abandon certain positions.
Israel, which also attached
a list of conditions when it
agreed to the Baker plan last
month, .must nowvdecide
whether the "ye^ses"
outweigh the "buts" suf-7
ficiently to go ahead.   :
Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir and, .Foreign
Minister Moshe Arens held
consultations last week to
formulate Israel's position.
According to reports
reaching here, President
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt
introduced some last-minute
changes in his reply to suit
American purposes, which
include keeping Israel in the
process.
At the same time,
Washington applied' some
pressure on Israel by describing the Egyptian response as "positive" and a
"step forward," in the words
of State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler.
That outlook was echoed
by the Labor component of
the Israeli governmentTVice
Premier Shimon Peres called it a chance not to be missed.
Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin hailed the Egyptian
response as "a great step
forward," adding that/'one
should not bother with the
details."
There was no official government reaction to Washington's announcement,
since the Israelis, though
told the contents of the
Egyptian document, have
yet to see it in writing;
Moreover, the Americans
relayed to them only the part
which responds^fayorably to
the Baker plan.
Jewish Community Campaign
Tops $5 Million In Advance Gifts
out central Ohio, as the Campaign's Community Phase is
launched in January.
Through direct mail, telephones and personal involvement, all members of the local Jewish community will
have the opportunity to participate in this annual fund
raising effort.
The Community Campaign provides funding for
eight local agencies which
serve the needs of central
Ohio Jews. Overseas allocations go to support a multitude of projects that serye
the people of Israel and Jewish communities throughput
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
1990 Jewish Community
Campaign General Chairman Alan Wasserstrom announces that the Campaign
has reached $5,200,000 as the
Advance Gifts Phase draws
to a close..
This record amount re--
fleets the generosity and effort of the many people who
have contributed to support
their community, according
to Wasserstrom:
The theme of this year's
Campaign, "CommUNITY
for the 90's stresses the importance of unified support
for the benefit of the entire
community. This message -
will soon be heard through-
The part containing
guarantees asked * by the
PLO was withheld for the
time being, apparently to
avoid complications.
According to reports here,
Egypt managed to convince
the PLO not to insist that its
demand for direct negotiations with the Israelis be included in the Egyptian response to the Baker plan.
To have done so would
have ruined the entire
scenario'. Shamir has repeatedly stated that Israel
would never negotiate with
the PLO, directly or indirectly.
He made that clear again
to John Kelly, the U:S. assistant secretary of state for
Near Eastern and South
Asian affairs, who was in
Jerusalem on Monday. Kelly
Israeli Ambassador Avner Says
United Europe Could Transform
Economic Situation In Israel
By Judith Franklin
Managing Editor
In Columbus under the
auspices of the Eugene Warner Lecture Series, which brings leading Israeli officials
and scholars to the United
States, Ambassador Yehuda
Avner spoke on Tuesday,
Dec. 5, to the Law Committee of the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rittfand to
other community leaders
and opinion shapers.
According to Avner, who
has been active in Israeli
politics since he fought in the
War of Independence in 1947,
the "momentous changes"
now occuring in Europe and
the Soviet Union, while not
encompassing the Mid-East,
are being felt there.
The former Israeli ambassador to London and advisor
to Prime Ministers Yitzchak
Rabin, Menachem Begin,
Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir,
said that while "Israel welcomes the restoration of
democratic life in East Germany, as Jews we cannot be
indifferent;to what a united
Germany had done to us in
the past."
He said that Israel, along
with the rest of the family of
nations, has adopted a wait
and see attitude but is currently gearing up for the economic opportunity a united
Europe, with trade and frontier barriers removed, will
present. "This is an enormous opportunity and challenge for Israeli industry,"
Avner noted. "It could transform the Israeli economy."
Yehuda Avner
Already, Israel has concluded trade agreements
with the Soviet Union and
has renewed diplomatic relations with Hungary and
Poland.
Still, the Foreign Ministry
Inspector General pointed
out, "the Arab world is engrossed in a Medieval obsession with fundamentalist religion," noting that there has
been an alarming increase in
Moslem fundamentalism on
the West Bank and in Gaza.
But the European influ-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
informed him that Washington was well aware of
Israel's position.
Nevertheless, the crux of
the problem remains the
PLO's involvement in the
process.
Observers here believe
that progress can be
facilitated by meeting of the
Israeli and Egyptian foreign
ministers with Baker 'in
Washington.
Such a meeting was in fact
the fifth of Baker's five
points. It is.considered an
inevitable preliminary to
any dialogue between
Israelis and Palestinians.
Archaeologists Unearth
Old Church In Negev
TEL AVIV (JTA) -The re- '
mains of a Byzantine church
dating from the fifth or sixth
centuries C.E. haVe been discovered at the Be'er-Sham
ruins in the Negev, the
government has announced.
The find was made in the
first season of diggings at
the site, by a team headed by
Yeshayahu Lender and Dan
Gazit of the Antiquities
Authority, a government
agency.
A building was found with
two chambers. One used for
baptisms contains a marble-
covered baptismal font.
But the most important
discovery was the three inscriptions on the- mosaic
floor.
Two honor the priests and
members of the local community. The third, in
Homeric-style Greek, mentions Heladius, the governor
of Gerar, which was a province during the Byzantine
period in what is now
southern Israel.
The inscription says a battalion of the governor's
horsemen helped build the
structure. 7
The inscriptions are
especially important to archaeologists, because they
name the province and the
governor, and credit
cavalrymen with erecting
the church.
The second chamber, adjacent to the first, has a
colorful mosaic floor with in-
j scriptions that mention,
among other things, "Victor
the Hermit.-" He may have
been a hermit priest who lived in the area and helped lay
the mosaic tiles.
BLOOD DAY Is Thursday, December 21,1989
Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center • 1125 College Ave.
12:30 - 6:30 p.m.
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