Meir-Pope Meeting Is Expected to Open Israel-Vatican Communication

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Pre
meeting with the Pope was
Golda Heir's meetin g held at the Vatican's initia-
with Pope Paul VI in th e tive, contrary to an oral state-
Vatican Jan. 15 is expecte d ment by Vatican press
to open a continuing dialogu e spokesman Frederico Alles-
between Israel and the Vati
sandrini.
can shortly which will con -
Petering to Allessandrini's
centrate on finding ways an d remarks, Mrs. Meir said,
means to grant special lega I "Apparently our meeting was
status to Christian hol y not viewed favorably by some
places in JerusaleM, inform - people in the Vatican."
ed sources said here.
The Israeli premier said
The Pope is understood t o the Pope thanked her a num-
have expressed to Mrs. Mei ✓ ber to times for the way Is-
his interest in proposals fo ✓ rael is safeguarding the holy
Legal formulas that would sites in Jerusalem. She stat-
accord special status to ed she found no signs of any
Christian holy places.
misunderstanding by the Pon-
However the pontiff is no t tiff of Israel's position with
'' ''— believed to have suggested
regard to Jerusalem—name-
'extra territorial status" for ly that the unified city is
the Christian shrines. fie is Israel's capital.
believed to be interested in
"I am not sure whether I
finding another formula that changed his mind on some
would confer special status subjects, but what was im-
on the sites.
portant was that he heard
Mrs. Meir, in her public our point of view and we
statement last week on her his," she said. Mrs. Meir
Vatican meeting, stressed added she would recommend
that Israel has no desire to to future Israeli prime min-
administer the holy places isters that they continue the
of other faiths.
dialogue with the Vatican.
Political observers here.
Mrs. Meir appeared nettled
meanwhile, have expressed when asked by reporters if
astonishment over critcism
Houphouet-Boigny was pre-
voiced by Vatican sources of pared to use his influence
—,Mrs. Meir's press statements
In Africa on behalf of Israel
on her meeting with the Pope.
which has suffered diplo-

4.-- mier

They expressed particular
surprise at Italian press re-
ports - claiming that the Vati-
can was annoyed by the pre-
mature announcement in Is-
rael of the meeting.

The news of the meeting
was announced in coordina-
tion with the Vatican, sourc-
es here pointed out.
The sources said that there
was nothing in Mrs. Meir's
subsequent press interviews
that could be interpreted as
an affront to the Pope.
The interviews published
iP Israeli newspapers sod on
television were aimed at
clarifying the nature of the
meeting and the develop-
ments that brought it about,
the sources said.
Foreign
Minister Abba
Eban listed Premier Meir's
meeting with Pope Paul as
one of the major foreign
policy developments for Is-
rael during an hour-long
foreign policy statement to
the Knesset Wednesday. But
Gahal opposition leader Men-
ahem Begin complained that
"too much fuss" was being
made over the meeting.

▪

-

Informed sources said that
Israel has assured repre-
sentatives of non-Roman
Catholic churches here that
nothing was done against
their interests when Premier
Meir
discussed the holy
places in Jerusalem with
Pope Paul. The sources said
that officials of the Greek
Orthodox, Armenian and
other churches were under-
stood to have expressed con-
cern that their interests
might have been affected by
the discussions in the Vatican
last week.
On her return home, Mrs.
Meir described her meeting
with Pope Paul as "highly
respectable, serious and
frank." She said her meet-
ing in Geneva with President
Felix Houphouet-Boigny of
Ivory Coast was nothing more
than a visit to an old friend
to "talk things over" and
chided the press for making
"a sensation" out of it.
She said the Pope told her
he wanted to help find a
peaceful solution in the Mld-
dle East but he did not speak
of mediation. "He would like
to be helpful in the question
of seeking peace in the Mid-
tile East," Mrs. Meir said.
She reiterated
that her

matic setbacks there lately.
She replied, "Your colleagues
(of the press) in Europe have
decided to make a sensation
out of this meeting."
She said, "When I was on
my trip I learned that a
great friend and a wonderful
personality was spending his
annual - holiday in Switzer-
land and I thought that it
would be the right thing to
meet him and talk things
over. Ile was very nice, and
he is a very wise man."

cautionary measures, the re-
ports said.
Despite the apparently fa-
vorable outcome of the Vati-
can meeting, it was not with-
out its tensions, according to
an interview with Mrs. Meir
published in the Israeli news-
paper Maariv.
She was quoted as saying
that during the audience with
Pope Paul she thought of the
Christian cross as the sym-
bol under which "Jews were
killed for generations."

"I didn't like the opening
at all," she was quoted as
saying. "The Pope said to
me at the outset that he
found it hard to understand
how the Jewish people, which
should be merciful, behaves
so fiercely in its own coun-
try.
"I can't stand it when we
are talked to like that. I've
had previous experiences of
this sort, and I won't give in
to anyone who begins a con-
versation in this way.

"So I said to the Pope:
'Your Holiness, do you know
what my earliest memory is?
A pogrom in Kiev. When we
were merciful and when we
had no homeland and when
we were weak, we were led
to the gas chambers."

Mrs. Meir, who was born
in 1898 in Kiev, the Ukraine,
said she had not been so ex-
cited about an official en-
gagement since 1949, when
she went to the Kremlin to
present her credentials as Is-
rael's first Ambassador to
the Soviet Union.

"I sat and thought to my-
self, here is the head of the
church, sitting face to face
with the Jewess from Israel,
and he's listening to what I'm
Meanwhile, rumors persist- saying—about the Jewish peo-
ed that Black September ter- ple, about its home in Israel,
rorists had planned an at- about its rights," she con-
tempt on Mrs. Meir's life tinued.
"There were moments of
when she landed in Paris but
were detered by the security tension. I felt that I was say-
precautions taken by French ing what I was saying to the
authorities.
man of the cross, who heads
According to the rumors, the church whose symbol is
terror ist assassins from the cross, under which Jews
neighboring European coun- were killed for generations.
tries were to attack Mrs. I could not escape this feel-
Meir at Orly Airport.
ing. It stock with me.
Israeli security services
"And he felt it, that a Jew-
learned of the plot and noti- ess was sitting opposite him,
fied the French authorities and he said: "This is a his-
who instituted special pre- toric moment.' "

Wilkes-Barre Jewish Libraries
Replenished by AJCommittee

NEW YORK — Two syna-
gogues, a day school and a
Jewish center whose libraries
were destroyed when tropical
' storm Agnes devastated the
Wyoming Valley in Pennsyl-
vania last June, have begun
rebuilding those libraries
through the help of the Balti-
more, Philadelphia and Pitts-
burgh chapters of the Ameri-
can Jewish Committee,
AJC's national Pennsylvania-
Delaware-Maryland regional
office and a special grant
from the Aber D. Unger
Foundation in Baltimore.
The first truckload of
books, selected by leaders of
the Jewish institutions from
the inventories of Commen-
tary magazine's Jewish Book
Club, was delivered by the
Pennsylvania Army National
Guard to Wilkes-Barre, where
the storm had destroyed a
major part of the resources
of the Jewish community.
Commentary is published by
the American Jewish Com-
mittee.
Recipients of the gifts
were Temple Bnai Brith,
Temple Israel, the United

Hebrew
Institute and the
Wyoming
Valley Jewish
Community Center, all lo-
cated in Wilkes-Barre.
Paul C. Wolman Jr., a
board member of the Balti-
more chapter of the AJC,
and Ira E. Mogul, a vice
president of the Philadelphia
chapter, said the three chap-
ters plan to continue the
project "until we have re-
placed this community's ac-
cess to its Jewish literary
heritage."
Among the books sent in
the new shipment were de-
finitive works on Jewish his-
tory, religion, festivals, cus-
toms, cooking, music, and
mysticism; the history of the
state of Israel, Israeli
peoples, art, and archeology;
Soviet Jewry; and the his-
tory and current status of
Judaism in America.
National Guardsmen de-
livered the books.

I never said all Democrats
were saloonkeepers; what I
said was all saloonkeepers
were Democrats. — Horace
Greeley.

The premier said that Is-
rael had asked for the audi-
ence after the Vatican had
made it clear that the request
would be answered favorably.
She dsecribed some light
moments in the Maariv inter-
view.
"Before we went to the au-
dience I said to our people:
"Listen, what's going on
here? Me, the daughter of
Moshe Meibovitz, the carpen-
ter, going to meet the Pope
of the Catholics? So one of
our people said to me: 'Just
a moment, Golda, carpentry
is a very respectable profes-
sion around here.'"

It was decided that a black
hat would be suitable for her
to wear. But Mrs. Meir, who
had no black hat, did not
want to buy one because she
could not use it afterward.
Then, Maariv said, she re-
membered that she had one
at home, left over from old
state events, and had it flown
to Rome.

Fr. Rijk, who has been ac-
tive in promoting Catholic-
Jewish understanding, attrib-
uted the tone of Allessand-
rini's statement to the "tra-
ditional anti-Jewish training
of leading Vatican theolo-
gians."
The Catholic
daily "De
Tijd" described Allessand-
rini's statement minimizing
the importance of Mrs. Meir's
meeting with the Pope as an
"almost servile appeasement
of the Arabs."
The newspaper said the
statement "makes a painful
impression and will hardly
increase the aVtican's pres-
tige."
It added, "One is left with
the feeling that the Vatican
cares more about the holy

MUSIC BY

SAM BARNETT

places in Jerusalem than
about Middle East peace."

Meanwhile, the Be ir ut
newspaper An Nahar report-
ed that a delegation of Pales-
tinian Arabs will meet soon
with Pope Paul at the Vati-
can.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
36—Friday, Jan. 26, 1973

Caricatures

for your party

SY

SAM FIELD
c„„

399-1320

AND HIS ORCHESTRA

968-2563

Dutch Priest, Catholic Daily
Rap Vatican for Statement

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A
Dutch priest and a Roman
Catholic daily here have
sharply criticized the Vatican
for the negative statement is-
sued by its press spokesman ,
Frederico Allessandrini, im-
mediately following Premier
Golda Meir's visit with Pope
Paul VI.

Father Cornelius Rijk, edi-
tor of the Catholic magazine,
"Sidic," said that Israeli Pre-
mier Golda Meit's meeting
with the Pope was "evidence
of a certain practical rap-
proachment between the Vat-
ican and Israel." But, he
added, "Never before has
such a hostile communique
been issued after the visit of
a foreign statesman."

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Al 114.

A STATEMENT REGARDING
THE SUPERVISION OF KASHRUT IN
THE METROPOLITAN DETROIT AREA

Consumers of kosher food products have the right to assume that the
hashgakho accompanying any product indeed attests to its ritual purity and
acceptability. We accept as an appropriate community responsibility the obliga-
tion to protect and to strengthen that right.

For a generation and more, Detroit has enjoyed a singular and distin-

guished position in this regard. The Council of Orthodox Rabbis has given careful
supervision to the preparation of products processed or manufactured locally,

and marketed as kosher. Consumers, on their part, have had the satisfaction of

knowing that a reputable and respected body, overseeing a process that con-
forms with the requirements of Halakha, has satisfied itself with the
kashrut

of that which is offered as kosher.

Detroit's Jewish community, accordingly, can take pride in the knowledge
that it has been spared the unseemly and undignified controversy and competi-

tiveness that have sometimes been associated with the supervision of kashrut
elsewhere. In the best interests of our community, such a situation can not be

permitted to develop. The process which the Council of Orthodox Rabbis has so
faithfully supervised is established in the confidence of the community. This
confidence has been strengthened over the years by the sense of responsibility

displayed by individual rabbis to the central communal authority in judgments
relating to the kashrut.

We consider it to be to the interest of the Jewish community to promote
ever wider understanding of the key role of the Council of Orthodox Rabbis in
maintaining standards of kashrut. To that end, the Jewish Community Council
of Metropolitan Detroit, jointly with the Council of Orthodox Rabbis, cars
the establishment of a Kashrut Advisory Council.

Those residents of our community who have accepted appointment to
this new committee have done so with a keen sense of responsibility to the
consumers of kosher food products.

They have agreed to function as a consultant body to the Council of
Orthodox Rabbis in all non-halakhic matters of policy and procedure relating to
the supervision of kashrut in metropolitan Detroit, and the Council of Orthodox
Rabbis has welcomed this development.
The Kashrut Advisory Council is seen as an important link in the chain

that binds our community to processes that are important to all and which
must maintain their centrality and be accorded our common respect.

Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit

Hubert J. Sidlow, President

Wolter E. Klein, Executive Director

January 26, 1973

