Page 4-THE NEWS-March 1991
World Beat
Germtny to Give IsnelS16S Million
BONN (JTA) — Chancellor
Helmut Kohl announced that
Germany would grant Israel
$165 million to help overcome
its economic problems, which
have been worsened by the
Persian Gulf war.
Kohl made the commitment
after being accused by opposi
tion Social Democrats and even
members of his own Christian
Democratic Union of insensitiv
ity toward Israel, especially after
the Jewish state became a target
of Iraqi missile attacks.
Kohl's announcement was
welcomed by Kent Schiner,
president of B’nai B’rith Inter
national, who had met with the
chancellor.
In his announcement. Kohl
also promised to take swift,
decisive action to halt German
exports of “sensitive equipment”
to Iraq or to any country from
where it could find its way to
Baghdad.
German firms are known to
have supplied the Iraqis with
material, equipment and tech
nology for the manufacture of
chemical weapons.
Isnel Asks U.S. for $10 Billion
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Isra
el has asked the U.S. for an
additional $10 billion in aid over
the next five years.
The request was made by
Finance Minister Yitzhak Mo-
da'i at a meeting in late Jan. with
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger. In mak
ing the request, Moda’i cited
Israel's immigrant absorption
burden and costs incurred as a
result of the Persian Gulf con
flict, which has made Israel a
target of Iraqi missile attacks.
Moda'i told reporters that Israel
could raise additional funds it
needed from other sources.
Eagleburger and his team of
State Department and Pentagon
aides also have met with Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Treasury officials said Israel
had lost $1 billion from the
slump in tourism caused by the
Persian Gulf crisis and another
billion in lost production as
workers stayed home during the
missile attacks.
A Treasury breakdown re
leased quantified early missile
damage in Tel Aviv and its
environs at $30 million.
Israeli and Palestinian
Activists Receive
Vienna Human Rights Awards
VIENNA (JTA) — Two Israe
li doves and a Palestinian na
tionalist were among the 24
recipients of the Bruno Kreisky
Human Rights Prizes.
The prizes, named for the late
Jewish-born chancellor of Aus
tria who had an abiding interest
in Middle East peace, were
awarded by Mayor Helmut Zilk
of Vienna.
The ceremony was held after
the second Iraqi missile attack
on Israel, which, speakers noted,
was hardly an occasion for joy
and jubilation. Most of the
prizes went to organizations
engaged in human rights and
humanitarian activities.
The individual recipients in
cluded Yael Dayan, an author
and journalist who is the daugh
ter of the late Israeli foreign
minister and defense minister,
Moshe Dayan. She was cited for
contributing significantly to the
dialogue between Israelis and
Palestinians.
Another recipient was Israeli
lawyer Felicia Langer, who
presently lives in Germany. She
was honored for serving as legal
counsel to West Bank Palestini
ans faced with deportation,
arrest and the punitive destruc
tion of their homes.
The Palestinian winner was
Faisal Husseini, a prominent
intellectual and journalist from
East Jerusalem, who preaches
non-violent resistance to Israeli
rule in the territories, though
Israeli officials say he is a leading
organizer of the intifada. The
jury cited Husseini's efforts to
find “a peaceful solution of the
conflicts between Israelis and
Palestinians through negotia
tions."
An award also was given to
the International Center for
Peace in the Middle East,
headed by Chaim Cohen, former
president of Israel's High Court
of Justice.
Syrian Jews See Window of Hope
NEW YORK (JTA) — The
U.S.-Syrian alliance against
Iraq, condemned by most Jewish
leaders, is being seen as a “win
dow of opportunity" for the
emigration of 3,500 Syrian Jews,
say Syrian Jewish activists.
The New York-based Council
for the Rescue of Syrian Jews,
an organization which repres
ents Jews in Syria, has said that
although Syrian Jews have the
freedom to teach and practice
Judaism, they are nevertheless
denied basic civil rights. Among
them is the right to emigrate, a
right guaranteed by the Univer
sal Declaration of Human
Rights, signed by Syria.
The council is also seeking a
relaxation of travel restrictions.
New York’s 30,000 Syrian
Jews have historically kept a low
political profile regarding Syrian
issues. The council is cautiously
optimistic that the discussions
between President Bush and
Hafez Assad in November pres
ented an opportunity for the
U.S. to request the emigration
of the 3,500 Syrian Jews for
family reunification in this coun
try.
“I really feel that now there
is a window of opportunity that
we have to take advantage of,”
says Alice Harary, the group’s
vice president. “With the focus
on the Persian Gulf and the
Middle East alliance, we have to
capitalize.” Harary, an attorney,
has been coordinating the
group’s lobbying efforts in
Washington.
Jewish Communities
To be Remembered
NEW YORK (JTA) — More
than 5,000 Jewish communities
in Europe that were destroyed
in the Holocaust will be remem
bered by the Yad Vashem Ho
locaust Memorial in Jerusalem,
with the inscription of the names
engraved on the stones of the
rough hewn buildings that will
constitute the Valley of Des
troyed Jewish Communities.
The project, begun in 1983,
will be completed in the spring
of 1992. Yad Vashem, the Jewish
people’s central memorial to the
Holocaust, is the only place in
the world where the names of
Jewish communities large and
small, representing 1,000 years
of flourishing Jewish life before
the Nazi onslaught, are com
memorated.
Anti-Semitic Poem Demands
Action from British Jewry
LONDON (JTA) — A crude
anti-Semitic rhyme mailed to
Jewish organizations and busi
nesses has been referred to the
attorney general by the Board of
Deputies of British Jews.
Titled “Holohoax” by “Simon
Wiesenstool," a pun on the name
of the famous Nazi-hunter, it
mocks the Holocaust and pokes
fun at the gassing of Jews.
The Board of Deputies ex
pressed confidence that action
will be taken. It pointed out that
the attorney general has ap
proved the first two prosecutions
for circulating anti-Semitic ma
terial under the 1986 Public
Order Act.
The authorship is unknown.
It appears to be the same that
contrived “Yiddery-Pokery,” an
earlier doggerel pillorying Jews
who were convicted in the Guin
ness affair, which involved stock
market manipulation. That title
was a takeoff on “jiggery-pok
ery,” an archaic expression
referring to illicit activities. The
publisher styles itself “Gentile
Awareness League,” which offi
cials believe is a fictitious name.
According to the Board of
Deputies, at least 20 Jewish
organizations received copies of
the “poem” in the mail. So did
Compco, a West End property
development company whose
managing director, Robert
Nadler, is Jewish,
Nadler said, “I am disgusted
that in this country and in this
day and age, someone can go to
the trouble of producing spme-
thing so bigoted and offensive.”
The Board of Deputies said
the circulation of anti-Semitic
material has been on the rise in
Britain in the last two years. It
has referred more than 20 sam
ples to the attorney general.
One Cannot be Both a Catholic and
Anti-Semitic Says Walesa
WASHINGTON (JTA) —
Vowing to rid his country of
anti-Semitism, President Lech
Walesa of Poland told a group
of visiting Jewish leaders in
Warsaw that one cannot be both
a Catholic and anti-Semitic.
“My religion teaches me that
the Jews are the chosen people,”
said the Polish leader, who is
Roman Catholic, “If I take my
religion seriously — if I think
of myself as a believer — then
I cannot be anti-Semitic.” He
added, “If I have anything to say
about it there will be no more
anti-Semitism in Poland.”
Walesa also expressed his
government’s support for Israel
in an official communique,
which was released after his
meeting with American and
European representatives of
B’nai B’rith International.
The delegation of B’nai B’rith
members, on a 17-day tour of
Eastern European capitals, was
headed by Kent Schiner, pres
ident of BBI.
Walesa had agreed to name a
permanent task force to combat
anti-Semitism in his country
when he met earlier with Miles
Lerman, a Holocaust survivor
and chairman of the U.S. Ho
locaust Memorial Council’s
international relations commit
tee.
Walesa’s pledge to root out
anti-Semitism came a little more
than a month after his country’s
Roman Catholic bishops issued
a statement formally condeming
anti-Semitism in Poland, and
acknowledging that some Poles
helped Nazis kill Jews during
World War II. The four-page
document, unprecedented in
Polish church history, was re
leased in Warsaw on Dec. 20 and
read during Catholic mass on
Jan. 20. It may have been
prompted by the disturbing
emergence of anti-Semitism in
the election campaign leading up
to Walesa’s landslide victory on
Dec. 9.
There was a widespread whis
pering campaign that Walesa’s
rival. Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki, a devout Catholic,
was of Jewish origin. Walesa
himself remarked during the
campaign that Jews who seek
political office should identify
themselves as such.
Students from Kishinev
Arrive in U.S.
NEW YORK (JTA) — Four
young students from Kishinev in
Moldavia arrived in the U.S. to
begin a program that enables
Jewish youths in the Soviet
republic to pursue religious
studies in yeshivot abroad. They
have been enrolled in Yeshiva
Toras Chaim in Denver, which
has designed a special curricu
lum for them in Jewish studies.
The youths, who range in age
from 12 to 14, took courses at
a yeshiva in Kishinev last spring
established by the Vaad, the
umbrella organization of Soviet
Jewry. But that institution’s full
time studies are primarily for
high school graduates in their
20s and 30s,
The project was instituted by
the Va’ad L’Hatzolas Nidchei
Yisroel of Agudath Israel of
America. The agency has been
active in promoting Orthodox
Judaism among Soviet Jews for
a decade, dating from the pre-
glasnost era.
Rabbi Chaim Freeman of
Lakewood, N.J., who served as
dean of the Kishinev yeshiva last
fall, arranged the student ex
change program with aides of
the prime minister of the Mol
davian republic.
Rabbi Yoel Sperka of Detroit
will go to Moldavia as part of
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