Ohio Jewish chronicle. (Columbus, Ohio), 1988-02-25

              »;•
serving Columbus and Central Ohio Jewish Community for Over 60 Years
VOL. 66   NO. 8
FEBRUARY 25,1988-ADAR 7
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideals.
198H  VEUMA   AVE. £XCH
"001.3.   0,      43d. 1
NCJW To Meet
March 15 At JC
Columbus Section,
National Council of Jewish
Women, will hold a luncheon
meeting on Tuesday March
15,11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the
Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center
(Room 309).
A box lunch will be served.
Couvert will be $7.50.
Speaking on the topic
"Teaching Your Children
About Sex" be Andi Wais-
man of Planned Parenthood.
Waisman is a former high
school English teacher and
has worked for the Lexington, Ky. Health Dept. teaching sex education. She has
been with Planned Parenthood in Columbus since September, 1987 and has given
many presentations in Columbus area schools. She
will talk on the importance
of communicating with
children and five issues that
keep parents and teens from
communicating. A question
and answer period will
follow.
Checks for the afternoon
should be sent to Rachel
Stern, 1109 Ravine Ridge
Dr., Worthington, Ohio
43085, or Toby Portman, 201
S. Drexel, Columbus, Ohio
43209. Deadline for the .reservations is March 8.
For more information, call
252-5565 or 436-4284. .
Japanese Rabbi Urges Steps Be Taken
To Combat Outbreak Of Anti-Semitism
Senator Metzenbaum Addresses
Women's Legislative Briefing
B'nai B'rith Women President Irma Gertler is pictured with Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D—Ohio) at a
recent legislative briefing in Washington, D.C., hosted
by BBW for leaders of nine major Jewish women's
organizations. Metzenbaum urged the women to concern themselves not only with Israel but also with
domestic legislation. "The AmericatvJewish community is perceived in the halls of Congress as a one-issue
community," he said, "but we are really much more
than that."
WASHINGTON (JTA) -
American Jews should construct a Jewish cultural center in Tokyo to disseminate
information that would
counter negative Japanese
perceptions of Jews, Japan's
sole rabbi urged here re:
cently.
Michael Schudrick, spiritual leader of the Jewish Community Center in Tokyo, explained that the stereotypes
were essentially the result of
a recent spate of anti-
Semitic books. He delivered
his comments following a
conference on that literature
sponsored by the American
Jewish Committee.
Approximately 170 Jewish
families live in Tokyo and no
more than 1,000 Jews are in
Japan at any given time, the
rabbi estimated. The Japanese government and people
are not-anti-Semitic, he said,
'Israel And The Arts' Committee Plans Include
Exhibit, Dancers, Perlman And Pops Concert
A celebration of the arts
will play a great role in the
upcoming festivities planned
for "Israel 40," the Columbus Jewish Federation and
The Giora Feidman Trio will perform at the seventh
annual Leon Schottenstein Memorial reception on
Monday, March 7, at the Agudas Achim Synagogue.
Friends Of Hillel To Host
Schottenstein Reception
Friends of Hillel will host
the seventh annual Leon
Schottenstein Memorial Reception oh Monday, March 7,
at the Agudas Achim Synagogue at 6:45 p.m. The
reception will immediately
precede the 8 p.m. performance of the Giora Feidman
Trio being presented by the
Jewish Student Activities
Board of Hillel.
Friends of Hillel is the
community support organization for the B'nai B'rith
Hillel Foundation at The
Ohio State University. The
membership dues and donations it receives are a major
source of funding for Hillel
programming. The Leon
Schottenstein Reception is at
the center of a campaign expected to raise one-half of
the funds needed for HillePs
program efforts on behalf of
Jewish students at Ohio
■State.  ■■
The tradition of toe annual
Friends of Hillel event began
in 1982 with a reception
honoring Zubin Mehta and
the Israel Philharmonic. The
tradition continued with
receptions following the performances of Vladimir
Ashkenazy in 1983, Eugenia
Zukerman in 1984, Yehudi
Menuhin in 1985,  Pinchas
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 5)
Leo Yassenoff Jewish
Center's joint community
celebration to honor Israel's
40th year of independence.
"The comprehensive
range of quality arts programming will help make
Israel 40 one of the most
exciting events to take place
in Columbus in May,"
according to Melva Schottenstein, Arts Committee
chairwoman.
For starters, during the
entire "Israel 40" celebration, the Goldberg Gallery of
the Jewish Center will host
an exhibit of Israeli art from -
the Galerie Rodin in St.
Louis. The exhibit opens
with a reception on April 24
and runs through May 23.
The Jesse Cohen Dance
Troupe will be in residence
in the community for two
weeks, from May 1-15. These
youngsters from Columbus'
sister city, Holon, Israel,
' have performed throughout
■ their country and will be a
visible presence in Columbus throughout "Israel 40."
They will perform for the
community at the Sunday
Festival May 15, and will
spend considerable time
with the Jewish Center's
School of Dance, Schottenstein reports.
"The group will also make
i appearances in the public
schools as well as for other
local Jewish organizations,"
she adds. "They perform an
energetic, exciting program
of modern Jazz and Israeli
dance."
In celebration of Lag
B'Omer and Israel's 40th, an
Israeli Coffeehouse will be
held at the Jewish Center on
Wednesday evening, May 4.
Although the coffeehouse
has been a popular feature at
past Israel birthday celebrations, this year's will be
special with a performance
by the Israeli folksinger
Nurit Galron, reports Schottenstein. There will also be
Israeli delicacies and an
ambience that will enable
participants to feel as if they
are in the land of Israel.
Melva Schottenstein
Still another highlight of
the celebration will be the
Itzak Perlman concert on
Wednesday, May 11, at the
Ohio Theatre,, Hundreds of
members of the Jewish community will attend the show
and reception, which will
follow in the Galbreath Pavilion. Karen Moss is serving
as Perlman concert chairwoman, and Diane Cummins
is chairing the reception.
On May 15, the"Israel 40"
celebration's Sunday Festival on the grounds of the
Jewish Center will feature a
free pops concert by the
Columbus Symphony Orchestra under the direction
' (CONTINUED ON PAGE 3)
and "no significant acts" of
anti-Semitism have taken
place in Japan in recent
years,
The problem, as he saw it,
was that some "very
unscrupulous authors" were
"taking advantages of" the
Japanese public with the
anti-Semitic books.
Theodore Ellenoff,
AJCommittee president,
said that two officials from
toe Japanese Embassy in
Washington attended : portions of the conference, he
said one of the political counselors told the group the
phenomenon of anti-Semitic
literature in Japan was
short-lived.
David Goodman, professor
of Japanese comparative
literature at the University
of Illinois, Champaign-
Urbana, told the conference
that roots of these books may
be concern over Japan's
international stature, including economic and political
ties with other countries.
He said the literature "is
not related to Israel" and is
intended specifically "to discredit :,fibj$Japanese-American relationship," as well as
Japan's democratic institutions.
Goodman cited two anti-
Semitic works that have sold
a combined one million
copies: Masami Uno's Jf You
Understand Judea, You Will
Understand the World and If
You Understand Judea, You
Will Understand Japan.
The books invoke "a long-
since discredited forgery
from Czarist Russia, 'The
Protocols of the Elders of
Zion,' to explain everything
from the devaluation of the
dollar relative to the yen to
the shooting down of Korean
Airline flight 007 — that it's
all the machinations of the
Jews," Goodman said.
Uno warned that "the
internationalization of Japan
is the Judaization of Japan,"
and should the Japanese
"want to avoid being taken
over by the. world Jewish
community, they must not
internationalize, but they
should adopt the strategy of
Adolf Hitler."
Uno acknowledged that
Hitler and former Soviet
leader Josef Stalin killed
millions of Jews but argued
"this was done out of necessity," Goodman said.
He said Uno's books show
"the Japanese are capable
of full-blown Nazi anti-Semitism."
Goodman added that a
television program aired
last December was a anti-
Semitic in discussing "Jewish capital." It was adapted
from a comic book describing the Japanese economy.
He said that while Japanese
viewers probably do not find
such anti-Semitic portrayals
of Jews '"objectionable,"
they are "profoundly offensive to the Jewish community in this country and they
present a very real danger in
cordial U.S.-Japan relations."
David Harris, AJCommit-
tee's Washington representative, said in an interview
that Japan's limited diplomatic relations with Israel
and sympathy toward
Palestinians likely
exacerbates the anti-Semitic
writing, although the two are
not directly related.
Japan's tilt toward the
Arab world often has been
considered a result of its
enormous reliance on oil and
other energy resources from
the Middle East. Japan receives more than 99 percent
of its petroleum from
abroad.
A Palestine Liberation
Organization office was set
up in Tokyo in 1977 and PLO
leader Yasir Arafat visited
the country in 1981.
Harris said there has been
a recent improvement in
Japanese-Israeli relations.
Trade over the first half of
1987 was up 50 percent over
the comparable 1986 period,
when it totaled $400 million.
He also, noted the
Mitsubishi company's recent
announcement that it would
market its cars in Israel and
the November 1987 visit to
Israel by a Japanese economic delegation, following
a similar visit to Japan the
previous month by Israelis.
Japan's ambassador to the
United States, Nobuo
Matsunaga, cited those developments in a November
1987 letter to members of
Congress.
Matsunaga also cited the
September meeting in New
York between Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres and Tadas hi
Kuranari, then his Japanese
counterpart, as well as an
October visit to Israel by
Takeshi Hamano, then
Japan's vice minister of
foreign affairs.
Harris said improvements
are   needed   in  Japanese
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 4)
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