Hebrew U. Giant Laser Takes- Closer Look at Atmosphere
26-Friday,
December 6, 1968
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
'
JERUSALEM—A new sort of
light goes out from Jerusalem.
Night after night, Hebrew Univer-
sity scientists train a newly instal-
led ultra-powerful meteorological
laser instrument at various objects
in the atmosphere as part of re-
search which is expected to yield
important data.
Main sponsor is the Environ-
mental Science Services Adminis-
tration's national severe storms
laboratory, under the 'U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce, which granted
$40,000 for a two-year research
project ending March, 1969.
The study is conducted by two
young scientists, Ariel Cohen, 28,
and Michael Graber, 26, as part
of their PhD and MSc work, re-
spectively. It is being carried out
by the department of meteorology,
in cooperation with the department
of physics' microwave division.
HEBREW UNIVERSITY STUDENT SHOOTS LASER BEAM
Italian Jew's Dedication to Zionism
Recalled on 50th Year of 'Commission'
By DR. S. U. NAHON
Fifty years ago, the Zionist Com-
mission (Vaad Hatzirim le Eretz
Israel), headed by Dr. Chaim
Weizmann, and consisting of mem-
bers appointed by Zionist and Jew-
ish organizations in Great Britain,
France, Italy, Russia and the
United States, came to Palestine
for the puropse of inquiring into
conditions in the country and of
taking the first steps, in conjunc-
tion with the British authorities,
for the establishment of the Jewish
National Home.
Of all the members of that com-
mission, only Robert Szold of New
York and Lord Sieff of England
survive.
The Zionist Commission was ap-
pointed with the full consent of the
British government, and hopes ran
high when it set out at the end of
March 1918- Some people regarded
the commission as some sort of
Jewish provisional government.
Disappointments, however, were
not late in coming.
General Allenby and other high-
ranking officers, aware of the Bal-
four Declaration, though not quite
sympathetic with the policy it em-
bodied, were engaged in military
operations and did not consider the
matters which were the chief con-
cern of the Zionist leaders as ur-
gent. The rank and file of the
British military forces ignored the
• Balfour Declaration altogether and
did not conceal their hostility to it.
The French and Italian members
of the commission were appointed
with the concurrence of their re-
spective governments and were
supposed to take care of the inter-
ests of their countries, in addition
to their official duties as members
of the commission. The French
representative was Prof. Sylvain
Levy, an outspoken anti-Zionist
who remained in Palestine for only
a short time. His appearance be-
fore the Peace Conference in 1919
is still recalled as a sad example
of the lack of Jewish unity, even
before the great of the earth.
The Italian delegates were Dr.
Diacomo Artom, a physician who
had lived for many years in
Egypt, and who worked in Pales-
tine in the field of medical as-
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Adv.
—
sistance, and Comandante Angelo
Levi-Bianchini, a brilliant naval
officer, who lectured at the Ac-
cademia Navale of Leghorn and
at the Scuola di Guerra at Turin.
He had taken part in the Italian
war in Libya, had commanded an
Italian destroyer in the Red Sea,
and in 1916 was decorated for the
"very difficult war operations con-
ducted with unusual audacity and
military skill in the Adriatic."
Dr. Gergio Ihak Minerbi, at pres-
ent Israel ambassador to the Ivory
Coast, has written a 128-page study
(published by the Sally Mayer
Foundation, Jerusalem-Milan) of
the remarkable personality of An-
gelo Levi-Bianchini and his mis-
sions to the Near East in the years
1918-1920. It is the first document
work on Levi-Bianchini and it is
based on the Italian Foreign Office
Archives in Rome, Zionist docu-
ments in the Central Zionist Ar-
chives, (Jerusalem and New York),
as well as on the letters of Angelo
Levi-Bianchini to his wife. The
essay deals with his devoted work
and his full identification with the
Jewish people and Zionist ideals.
A man of wide culture and of
great charm, he gained the confi-
dence of Dr. Weizmann and of Dr.
M. D. Eder, who succeeded Dr.
Weizmann as chairman of the com-
mission when the latter returned to
London. His Western education and
approach made Levi-Bianchini
persona grata with the British who
realized that they could rely on his
fairness in all circumstances.
From Dr. Minerbi's essay it
emerges that Levi-Bianchini suc-
ceeded in organizing a modest in-
telligence service of his own and
in helping Jewish settlers in their
self-defense efforts.
Anti-Jewish riots on the occa-
sion of the Nebi Mussa festival
in 1919 were averted thanks to
the tactful and firm intervention
of Levi-Bianchini with the au-
thorities. This unfortunately was
not the case in the following
year when Levi-Bianchini was no
longer in Palestine. He left in
May 1919 to assist Zionist inter-
ests at the Paris Peace Confer-
ence of May-June 1919. He was
again at Dr. Weizmann's side at
the San Remo Conference of
1920.
Angelo Levi-Bianchini's life came
to an end in 1920 at the age of 43.
He was traveling from Damascus
to Haifa in the same train as car-
ried members of the Syrian gov-
ernment appointed by the French.
The train was attacked by Arab
nationalists who killed the French-
appointed Arab ministers and, un-
fortunately, also Comandante Levi-
Bianchini, who was probably mis-
taken for a French officer.
The fame of Levi-Bianchini ran
so high that it was rumored at one
time that he held good chances to
be appointed "king of the Jewish
state to be established in Palestine
under British auspices."
Designed mainly for upper
atmospheric research and equip-
ped with Israel's largest tele-
scope, a 12-incher, the British-
made instrument emits a pulse
of light energy with a peak power
of 100,000,000 watts, equivalent
to the output of one of Israel's
largest power station generators.
Unlike the performance of the
power plant, which generates
this amount of power around
the clock, the laser instrument
only maintains this power for
the duration of 70,000,000,000 of
a second.
The electronic device, largest
meteorological laser installation
ever built in Britain, is now in-
stalled on the roof of Jerusalem's
four-storey Terra Sancta building,
home of the university's depart-
ment of meteorology.
The research is partly concerned
with studies of the lower atmo-
sphere probing the development of
cloud droplets, visibility and dust
layers which are correlated to
various weather phenomena. Its
main objective, however, is a
study of the upper atmosphere de-
tecting cloud layers, measuring
density variations and, if possible,
also windspeed.
$2 Billion Budget OK'd
by Cabinet Cuts Road
Building, Omits Defense
I JERUSALEM (JTA)—A national
budget, reportedly amounting to
$2,000,000,000 for the next fiscal
year, was adopted by the cabinet
Sunday and will be submitted to
the Knesset later this month. The
figure, which was reported by in-
formed sources, is $350,000,000
higher than the budget approved
for the present year but represents
cuts in spending for development
projects such as public works and
road building. It does not include
security and defense expenditures.
The 1969 fiscal year will begin
April 1.
Financial reporters commenting
on the details of the budget saw a
credit squeeze in the offing. They
noted Sunday's statement by a gov-
ernment spokesman that no com-
pulsory loan would be imposed on
the population next year.
However, Israeli banks will be
asked to purchase government
bonds amounting to $58,000,000.
Since they will have to make their
purchases from funds set aside
for customer loans, they will be
less able to grant credit to the gen-
eral public, the financial writers
said.
Only 11 West Bank
Arabs Used Permits
for Repatriation
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A total of
11 former West Bank residents re-
turned to their homes during the
first week following Israel's an-
nouncement that re-entry permits
issued last year would he extended
to Jan. 31. Six crossed the Allenby
Bridge Friday. A total of 6,989 re-
entry permits tof 20,000 issued, re-
main unused. Israel announced
that they would be transferred to
other Six-Day War refugees apply-
ing for repatriation when the dead-
line expires.
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