Nixon-Dayan
on-Dayan Meeting Set for Today
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The White House has advised the Israel embassy that President Nixon will meet with Israel
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan today. Meetings have already been scheduled for Gen. Dayan with Secretary of State William
P. Rogers, Defense Secretary Melvin B. Laird and other top administration officials. Gen. Dam arrived In New Yerk
Wednesday and will address the United Jewish Appeal Conference Saturday night. He reportedly deferred his arrival in Washing-
ton until today to avoid overlapping with the visit of King Hussein of Jordan, who arrived in the capital Monday for his
meeting with President Nixon Tuesday.
The Nixon administration reportedly will try to persuade Dayan to get his government to agree swiftly to return to the
stalled Jarring talks. Dayan will discuss his country's arms needs and reportedly will ask for more arms on a contractual
basis. He will be interviewed on "Meet the Press" 12:30 p.m. Sunday on Channel 4.
UJA's Expanded
Role in
Philanthropy
•
Leadership
Priorities
for Youth
Editorials
Page 4
Vol. LVI I I. No. 13
THE JEWISH NEVVS
Michigan Weekly
Review of Jewish News
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
■n
17515 W. 9 Mile Rd., Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075, 356-8400 $8.00 Per Year; This Issue 25c
A Deluded and
Uninformed
Editor's
Spread of Hate
From the
Middle East
Coentneutery
Page 2
December 11, 1970
Death Feared for Soviet Jews
Facing Trial in Leningrad Tuesday
AJ Committee's Executive Head
Urges Softer Parochiaid Stand
HOUSTON (JTA)—The American Jewish Committee called for
the improvement and strengthening of Jewish education which "with
all its family and communal implications, is indisputably basic to
Jewish continuity in the United States."
The resolution on education, adopted at the closing session of
the AJCommittee's national executive council's annual meeting here,
followed an earlier proposal by the organization's executive vice
president, Bertram A. Gold, that it soften somewhat its stand against
state aid to parochial schools.
Gold said the AJCommittee, long opposed to the weakening of
barriers between church and state, might consider backing "public
support of at least the nonreligious portions of parochial day school
education."
He said that such compromises, like support for .open enrollment,
might have to be made by American Jews to keep them from "turn-
ing away from society" and taking a "simplistic world view."
The education resolution stated that the AJCommittee "has long
recognized responsibility to provide services helpful in furthering
Jewish identity and continuity and strengthening Jewish communal
life." It said that objective "is becoming increasingly urgent in the
light of the challenges that today confront the established ideologies
and programs of the Jewish community."
Other resolutions adopted by the executive council condemned
Jewish youth within the New Left "who allow their non-Zionist or
anti-Zionist views to be exploited as a vehicle for anti-Semitism and
hostility toward Israel" and praised the Nixon administration for its
efforts to prevent an upset of the Mid East military balance by Soviet-
Egyptian truce violations.
Statistics circulated at the executive council meeting showed
that about 350,000 children in America receive some form of Jewish
education in 2,727 known Jewish schools of all types but this figure
represents only one-third of Jewish school-age children.
The largest percentage of children, 69.8 per cent, receiving Jewish
education are in the 8-12 age group; no more than 7 per cent pursue
Jewish education after bar or bat mitzva age. The statistics noted
a decline in supplementary Jewish religious schools and a sharp
increase in Jewish all-day schools in which more than 50,000 Jewish
children are enrolled in the New York area alone.
The AJCommittee reported that most competent observers be-
lieve that "Jewish education has been bandicaped by functioning
within tightly defined denominational settings, preventing broader
and experimental approaches, at a time when ideological differences
(Continued on Page 6)
NEW YORK (JTA)—A Moscow announcement that the death penalty and a 26-year
prison term had been imposed more than a year ago for the attempted hijacking of a
Soviet airliner was described by an American Jewish Congress spokesman as "part of a
Soviet propaganda campaign to prepare the world for the imminent show trial and pun-
ishment of 34 Jews whose only crime is their desire to make their home in Israel."
Richard Cohen, associate executive director of the Congress, said that the delay
in the show trials, originally scheduled to take place in November and now set for Tues-
day, "may well have been caused by the Soviet regime's desire to launch a more extensive
effort to whip up public opinion on the hijacking issue."
He said that the year-old hijacking sentence, reported several days ago by UPI Mos-
cow correspondent, Henry Shapiro, apparently did not involve Jews but rather a family
headed by one Galina Slovenchik. But he warned that the 34 Russian Jews charged with
air piracy would face the same penalty as that imposed on the Slovenchik family.
(In response to requests by the families of the accused, the Detroit Jewish Com-
munity Council is joining in the mass effort to send notes and cards to them, expressing
solidarity with their plight. The Council has a listing of 20 families and their addresses
and urges those interested in writing to contact the Council at 962-1880.)
In Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Abba Eban accused the Soviet Union Wednesday of
"suppressing and violating the most elementary human rights" in its treatment of Jewish
prisoners in Leningrad. He called their arrest "oneof the most shocking episodes in our
generation." Eban spoke during a question-answer period in the Knesset. He referred to
the nine Jews facing imminent trial in Leningrad.
Eban said that several prominent jurists in the United States and Europe have
offered to defend the accused or to assist in their defense by Soviet lawyers. He said the
Soviet authorities have been notified of these offers but so far have ignored them.
Some 2,500 college faculty members have appealed to Soviet Premier Aleksei
Kosygin to live up to a pledge, made four years ago and allow Jews in the Soviet Union to
emigrate and reunite with their families abroad.
The academicans, from more than 150 American and Canadian universities, peti-
tioned the Soviet premier to grant exit permits to Jews who have applied for them.
Among the signers were four Nobel Prize winners.
They also called for the release of the Jews who have been arrested in recent
months and held incommunicado, maintaining that the prisoners were being held for
their daring persistence in seeking the right to emigrate.
The petition was prepared and the signatures were gathered by the Academic
Committee on Soviet Jewry, a nonsectarian group of more than 3,200 faculty members.
The petition cited Premier Kosygin's statement at a press conference in Paris on' Dec. 3,
1966. Responding to a question, the premier had then said, "As regards the reunion of
families, should anyone want to be reunited with their families, or want to leave the
Soviet Union, the road is open and no problem exists there."
The petition declared: "We appeal to you: uphold international obligations and
Rabbis View New Italian Divorce Law More
Favorable to Women Than Traditional `Get'
ROME (JTA)—Rabbis and their legal advisers here are considering the
consequences for Jewish couples of Italy's new divorce law. Previously, one expert
noted, Jews could not be divorced in Italy even though the Torah permits it. Now
Jews who were married by a rabbi can be. But the divorce will not be effected under
Jewish law but under the new national law. The Chief Rabbi of Turin, Prof. Sergio
Sierra, said: "Until now an Italian . Jew could obtain a religious divorce but it would
not have had any effect on his status in the eyes of the law of the country. Now
this has changed." He noted that the new law is more favorable to women than the
Jewish Get (divorce law). 'This will have to be complied with, otherwise the Get will
not be valid," Rabbi Sierra said. He added that he had no complaints about women's
advantages under the new ruling.
In Ostia near here, Tuesday, 60 rabbis opened the European Conference of
Rabbis with a session on the religious factor in Israeli-Diaspora relations. The three
speakers — Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yosef Ovadia of Tel Aviv, Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan
of France and Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff of Rome —' agreed that aliya was a Torah in-
com-
junction and therefore not only a personal or political necessity but a
ic
Sephard
mitment Others present included Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania,i
Chief Rabbi Solomon Gaon of England and several American rabbis. Dr. Gaon pre-
sided at the first meeting in the a bsence of Chief Rabbi Emeritus Sir Israel Brodie
of Ragland, who was indisposed. -
The participants visited the remains of a 1st Century synagogue.
(Continued on Page 32)
Hussein's Forces Repulse Guerrillas
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Another of the periodic truces halted fighting between
Jordanian troops and Palestinian guerrillas in northern Jordan Monday. But King
Hussein's forces seem determined to prevent the guerrillas from consolidating their
positions in the towns of Irbid, Ramtha and Marfaq, the latter continuing a garrison
of Iraqi troops.
The latest truce was arranged by the Joint Arab Truce Committee which was
formed in Cairo to supervise the accord that ended the Jordanian civil war in
September. But Jordanian forces managed to re-occupy the police station at Jerash
which was occupied by guerrillas over the weekend. The Jordanians are also moving
to re-garrison Mafraq, apparently confident that they will meet no opposition from
the Iraqis there. Iraqi troops, in much greater numbers than now, were in Jordan
during the civil war. They did not intervene on the side of the guerrillas.
Israeli authorities believe King Hussein's forces are strong enough to drive
the guerrillas from their northern Jordan strongholds. But, they say, the Amman
government wants to avoid an all-out clash because of the unfavorable repercussions
it would have in the rest of the Arab world. On the other hand, Amman cannot
accept guerrilla control of some of Jordan's largest towns indefinitely. The guerrillas'
ranks were decimated by the civil war but they have taken advantage of the lull in
fighting since then to consolidate their positions and recruit new members.
Travelers arriving here from Jordan reported strong armored columns moving
toward Irbid and Ramtha. But the column first moved south from Amman and then
headed north in a wide circle, apparently to confuse the guerrillas.