Erosion and the Appeals to Reason • Arab Terror Befuddles Human Conscience THE JEWISH NEWS A Weekly Review Commentary Page 2 VOL. LXVIII, No. 16 A New Year: Taking Stock of a Barbaric Age and Hopes for Better Days Editorial Page 4 of Jewish Events 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424 8833 - $10.00 Per Year ; This Issue 30c December 26, 1975 16).S. Cabinet Allowing Saudi Bias AJCongress Says in Court Suit ■■ ■ Jews Continue Protests of Mexico's Zionism Vote NEW YORK (JTA) — Mexico's affirmative vote in the General As- sembly for a resolution condemning Zionism was denounced by Israel's Ambassador to the UN, the Israeli Tourism Minister and the leaders of Bnai Brith and Young Israel. In addition, the two Jewish organizations affirmed that their ban on tour programs, ordered after Mexico voted in the Assembly last month for the resolution equating Zionism with racism, continues to be in effect. David M. Blumberg, president of Bnai Brith, sent a letter to Echeverria informing him that because of his nation's "astounding vote" it could not reinstate its tours there now. Blumberg recalled in his letter that he had been assured by Mexican Foreign Minister Emilio Rabasa and Mexican Ambassador Benite Berlin that Mexico "in no way regarded Zionism as a form of racism" and was commit- ted "to the survival of Israel as a Jewish state and a genuine exam- ple of national liberation." Herman Rosenbaum, president of the national council of Young Israel, said his organization was maintaining.its suspension of tours to Mexico and stated that the explanation of the Mexican delegate to the UN regarding its vote was contradictory and unacceptable. The strong reaction by Israel's Ambassador to the UN Chaim Her- zog against the Mexican vote was due to "technical failure," Foreign Minister Yigal Allon told the Israeli Cabinet Sunday. Allon said Herzog had not received the full papers of the Mexican foreign minister's visit to Israel, which would have clarified to him the "understanding" between Israel and Mexico. Had he received these clar- ifications in time, Allon explained, his reaction would have been different. As things turned out, Allon said, following Rabasa's visit the relations between the two countries have improved and were now even better than in the past. However, Allon added, he could not predict how these relations would develop in the future. Israeli observors said Mexico's non-participation in the UNESCO Council's anti-Zionist vote in Paris last week was seen as an affirmation of Mexico's promise to have no part in condemnations of Zionism any- more. However, an advertisement in Sunday's New York Times inserted by nearly 100 who had cancelled visits to Mexico urged a continuation of boycotts against travel to Mexico. The ad was signed by the Vacation Committee of North Bergen, N.J. WASHINGTON (JTA) — Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and three other members of President Ford's Cabinet were named last week as defendants in a suit filed in Federal District Court by the American Jewish Congress charging them with violating the constitutional rights of American Jews who are excluded from participating in government-supported programs in Saudi Arabia because of their religion. Charging that the federal government was a "silent partner" in Saudi Arabia's "reli- gious bigotry against Jews," the AJCongress asked for an injunction barring Kissinger, Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, Secretary of Commerce Elliot Richardson and Inte- rior Secretary Thomas S. Kleppe from implementing a 1974 U.S.-Saudi Arabia agreement calling for cooperation between the two countries in the fields of economics, technology and industry . "We "We are asserting that no agency of government may cooper- ate with or participate in any program from which American citi- zens are barred or set apart because of their religion," Leo Pfeffer, special counsel of the American Jewish Congress, said at a news conference in the National Press Club following the filing of the suit. He added: "In seeking to establish the principle that the Constitutional rights of American citizens may not be waived by the government in its dealings with foreign states, this suit raises important consti- tutional issues with long-range implications in the field of interna- tional law. If other nations wish to benefit from American scien- tific know-how and other forms of U.S. assistance, they must accept the fact that the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion." The suit is a class action brought by the AJCongress, four of its officials and two private persons — Louis Kaplan of the Univer- HENRY KISSINGER sity of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisc. and Martin Watkins of West Chester, Pa., a professor of English. According to the complaint, Prof. Kaplan was denied — because he is Jewish — employment in a program sponsored by the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities to help improve the library facilities of the University of Riyadh In Saudi Arabia. Prof. Watkins charged that because he was Jewish "and therefore subject to the discriminatory and restrictive policy of the government of Saudi Arabia," he was deterred from filling out an application requiring him to list his and his parents' reli- gion for a job teaching English to military personnel in Saudi Arabia that had been advertised by the Bendix-Synco Corp. of Maryland. AJCongress suit noted that Kissinger and other U.S. offi- cials have prevailed on Saudi Arabia to waive the "undesirable per- ' ■ A - V A IhitIVA - (Continued on Page 6) WILLIAM E. SIMON (Continued on Page 5) Swastika Cards Mailed to Metro NY Jews NEW YORK (JTA) — Several hundred cards bearing reproductions of the black and red Nazi flag and the slogans "Hitler was Right" and "We are Back" with no indication of the identity of the sender were received by Jewish individuals and institutions in several New York state counties, an official of the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith reported. The swastika-adorned missives were mailed during the week of Dec. 3 from Farmingdale, N.Y. according to Mel Cooprman, director of the ADL Long Island regional office. He said the apparent area of the mailings was Metropolitan New York, and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland. Cooperman said the items were in the form of three-by-five-inch index cards and apparently were mailed at random to Jews and institutions in the area. He said the lack of a zip code on the addresses suggested that the sender had gone through telephone books looking for Jewish names for his mailing list. Cooperman said the cards carried the Fairfax, Va. address of the National Socialist White People's Party, a miniscule neo-Nazi group, which offers the cards in its publication. He also disclosed that a similar mailing took place a year ago exclusively to kosher butchers. Cooperman said he had discussed the mailings with the Farmington postmaster, who said the absence of markings or return address on the first-class mailings made it impossible to take any action and that, in any case, the cards contained no threats and hence did not violate postal regulations. The ADL official said there were some tiny neo-Nazi groups on Long Island, including Farmingdale, and he said a small group of the National Renaissance Party "surfaced" occassionally with gatherings of three or four members. At the beginning of World War II the Nazi Bund was active in the Farmingdale and Riverhead areas of Long Island. Airport Alerted on Vienna Terror . TEL AVIV (JTA) — Ben-Gurion Air- port was placed under full alert Monday on the chance that a Austrian DC-9 carrying six Arab terrorists and 30 hostages they seized in Vienna la,t weekend would alter course for the Middle East. Ben-Gurion Airport, and other interna- tional airports in the region, have been put on alert as a matter of routine whenever air- craft commandeered or hijacked by Arab terrorists are in the skies. Five persons were killed and ministers of the member states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) (Continued on Page 8)