56 Friday, January 28, 1977 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Many Problems Seen, A Few Solutions Prescribed for the World Jewish Press noted, is highly effective in investigating corrup- tion and machinations in government circles yet fails to consistently or ef- fectively deal with the quality of Israeli life, both in its contributions to the arts and sciences and the social problems which af- fect the average Israeli. * * * The press, this writer continued, should deal Conference with these problems be- Elects Officers cause Israel's enemies Members of the World don't have to read the Is- Executive Committee of raeli press to know what's the World Union of going on in_the Jewish Jewish Journalists in- state. clude the following from By avoiding the more the United States: Joseph unpleasant elements of Is- Polakoff, Washington; rael's social development Philip Slomovitz, Detroit; the non-Jewish press Frank Wundahl, abroad reports about them Philadelphia, and Robert out of context and fre- Cohn, St. Louis. quently catches Jewish Moshe Ron, Detroit communities by surprise. Jewish News Tel Aviv But if the Israeli press correspondent, was re- dealt with these problems elected executive secre- it could provide an insight tary. Josef Fraenkel, De- into their and the troit Jewish News Lon- methods of origins trying don correspondent, also and resolve them. to cope was elected a member of In addition, he said, the the world executive. 'she Mexican delega- Israeli press is becorning, tion to the world confer- to all intents and •pur- ence accompanied an in- poses less and less of a vitation to the World Jewish press in its re- Union of. Jewish Jour- liance on reports from nalists to hold its next abroad that appear in the annual executive com- non-Jewish rather than mittee meeting in Mexico in what appears in the with a presentation of Jewish press and Jewish awards to five participat- news agencies. ing journa.lists. . Focusing on the Jewish The awards, in the form press in the United of citations and medals, States, this writer told came from the La Asocia- another session of the cion Nacional de conference that for the Periodistasy Los Sectores first time in decades "our Intelecttiales del Pais press is a powerhouse and Que Forman Suconsego generally respected for Te-enico. its credibility by the The medals were pre- sented from Presea "Francisco Zarco". Al Merito Periodisto to Moshe Assaf, head of the Israel Journalists Assn.; Moshe Ron, London, and JERUSALEM (JTA) — Philip Slomovitz, Detroit. President Ephraim Kat- zir told the International Maccabiah Games Com- mittee (IMGC) delegates from 17 countries attend- ing a week-long confer- ence in Israel that he hopes many of the 2,000 Jewish athletes who will appear in the 10th Mac- cabiah Games in Israel July 12-21 "will return to us as new immigrants in the not too distant fu- ture." Katzir, who hosted the delegation at a reception in the Presidential resi- dence, also told them "That we are grateful for your help and involve- ment in this great set of international Jewish games." Later, at a Knesset luncheon, Avraham Katz, chairman of the Knesset committee on education, culture and sports, told them that "the past Mac- cabiot have been inspir- ing events and have served as an encouraging factor for the promotion of aliya to our homeland." Culture and Education Minister Aharon Yadlin told the group that "It is our fondest hope and ex- pectation that this country of ours belongs to all Jews (Continued from Page 2) press for phrase- mongering, playing fast and loose with facts, fail- ing to verify statements, scandalizing the news and succumbing to a "galut mentality in re- verse." The Israeli press, he non-Jewish press - and deluged with press re- leases from organiza- community." The American Jewish tional spokespeople that press, he said, including have little if any pews the JTA which services value apart from -keeping some 80 w e eklies, is regu- local names in the press. In addition, this writer larly monitored by the White House, the State noted, too many organiza- Department, foreign em- tional spokespersons are bassies, influential col- more ecstatic about get- umnists and • the Soviet ting into print in major and Arab press represen- non-Jewish dailies than in tatives in Washington the Jewish press. and the United Nations. "The Jewish, press has They read it to find out to make it clear that it, what is happening in the and not the daily press, is Jewish communities and the voice of the Jewish what is the thinking of community," he said. the Jewish leaders. This writer and other As examples he cited speakers at the confer- the fact that during the ence, urged the Jewish Presidential election press around the world campaign representa- not to shy away from dis- tives from both the Ford sent and disputation. and Carter camps called The Jewish press in the JTA and many week- America, with its lies to discuss news de- -talented and dedicated velopments and that fre- editors, journalists and quently news dispatches publishers can become in the JTA and the Jewish catalytic agents in weeklies concerning both mobilizing the corn- President Ford . and munities. on issues of vital Jimmy Carter were car- concern to the Jewish ried earlier and in greater people and Israel. depth than in the non- The conference did Jewish press. have one salutory ef- Another example was fect: it brought to- that the House Foreign gether journalists who, Relations Committee is-' despite their differences sued an extensive report in outlooks and back- on anti-Semitism • in grounds, diversity of Argentina which carried political and social condi- two lengthy articles on tions under which they the situation there from work in their respective Jewish weeklies that had countries and despite the been distributed by the rivalries between the JTA. three blocs, came away Despite 'allthis, the with the fuller realization Jewish press in America that nothing in the world is frequently bogged today is alien to Jewish down in its reports on journalism and that all local community de- social and political de- velopments impinge on velopments because editors and reporters are Jewish life. Katzir Hopes Maccabiah Athletes Will Become Future Immigrants wherever they are and the Maccabiah Games sym- bolize our people." Noting that questions are constantly raised about whether Jews are a race, religion or culture, Yadlin said: "We are a un- ique people . . . We are a universal people in all cultures throughout the world." He added that "Israel is a wonderful country if you do not read the news- papers. We have faults besides miracles and achieveMents. We are trying to cope with our mistakes." The problems facing Jewish youth in many parts of the world today was a subject of discus- sion during a meeting of the delegation • at the Maccabiah village. Dr. Israel Peled, chair- man of the Maccabi World Executive, said that Jewish communities ab- road, especially in South America and to some ex- tent South Africa, find themselves involved in a crisis that may not have any direct connection with Jewish issues but could, nevertheless, hurt the Jewish community. He urged the training of cadres of youth leaders and Jewish leadership generally. He reported that be- cause of its non-partisan nature, the Maccabi movement has become a center of Jewish - ac- tivities in many countries where Maccabi clubs have been transformed into communal centers where Jewish youths can find their identity... in the Jewish spirit and herit- age. Peled reported that ef- forts are being made, in cooperation with other organizations, to bring teams from Cuba, Iran and Turkey and from sev- eral Eastern European countries to Israel for the Maccabiah next summer. The IMGC elected Robert Rosenberg, of Manhasset, L.I., past pres- ident of the United States Committee Sports for Is- rael to be chairman of fi- nance for the 1977 Mac- cabiah. Alan Sherman, of Washington, D.C., was elected co-chairman of the Sports Committee. William Steerman was sppointed to the Accom- modations Committee and Haskell Cohen to the press, television and media committee. BoriS Smolar's 'Between You • • . and Me' Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, JTA (Copyright 1977, JTA, Inc.) AMERICAN ORT CONVENTION: I am a great admirer of ORT— the Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training — which is now making prepa- rations to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The mere fact that a Jewish organization founded in Czarist Russia some 100 years ago to help hundreds of thousands of Jewish "luft-menschen" who lived in misery and under oppression — and raising the- -es- sary funds for this purpose among the wealth nd middle-class Russian Jews themselves, with no aid from Jewish communities abroad — speaks for itself and for Jewish leadership in Russia at that time. Even more impressive is the fact that the organization has,,_ since World War I, grown into a world Jewish body by expanding into what is now known as the World ORT Union and extending its operations to all countries where Jews are in need of vocational training. But my major regard for the ORT emanates chiefly - from the fact that during all the years of its existence., ORT was an organization of creative "takhlit" — of training Jews, young and adult, to be- come self-supporting through the kind of vocational knowledge that implants dignity in people by giving them a feeling of self-assurance that, as highly skilled workers, they will be able to make a living in any country by the skill of their hands. This is no small achievement. Through its vocational schools, ORT has trained hundreds of thousands of Jews not only in Russia, but later also in Poland, Romania and other countries to economic self-reliance. 38,000 ORT SCHOOLS: Today ORT functions in more than 20 countries with 38,000 vocational schools serving over 70,000 young and adult students, 47,000 of them in Israel. In Israel,, ORT is the backbone of the country's . training system for cadres of qualified workers in all fields needed for Israel's economic and technical growth. With the ORT vocational system, Israel feels it has a growing reservoir of highly specialized people. ORT also enjoys recognition in France where it maintains a large number of vocational training' schools, some of Which are subsidized by local manic= palities. It enjoys special recognition on the part of the Swiss government which helps to finance the Central ORT Institute for the training of instructors for the ORT school system in the entire free world. There are about 3,000 such instructors in the ORT system. The remarkable thing is that even Moslem coun- tries — like Iran and Arab governments in North Af- rica — welcome the ORT programs in their lands. They seek to influence ORT to accept also Moslem students for which they are willing to pay tuition in the desire to provide them with the high-quality vocational train- ing. The International Labor Office has termed ORT has "an example of private technical assistance" de- cades before the U.S. began to give technical aid to underdeveloped nations. The U.S. government -is now maintaining a number of arrangements with ORT under which ORT provides vocational training in un- derdeveloped countries assisted by Washington. U.S. JEWISH AFFINITY: The American ORT Federation, which -held its three-day annual national conference in New York last weekend with 600 dele- gates from all over the country, was formed only about 55 years ago, many years after ORT had already existed. This is because very little was known by American Jewry of ORT until after World War I, when it was transformed into the present World ORT Union, with its seat no longer in Russia but in Berlin. I remember the year when the first ORT mission came from Berlin to the United States to seek Ameri- can Jewish aid and to form an American group of ORT. The delegation was composed of Dr. Leon Bra son and Dr. Aron Syngalowski, later joined 7 r. Lvovitch — the three top leaders of World OR . _ ey had no easy task to perform. Influential American Jewish leaders were mostly ignorant of the ORT activ- ities in Europe. Fortunately, the Jewish labor movement in this country — the Jewish labor unions, the Jewish Daily Forward, the Workmen's Circle did understand the importance of ORT, and they developed a strong affin- ity toward ORT, under the active leadership of B. Vla- dek, then a central figure in the Jewish labor move- ment. In no time, ORT began to receive not only moral support but also financial aid from the Jewish labor unions in this country, and its reputation grew from year to year among all elements of American Jewry. Today, ORT is well known and highly respected in Jewish communities throughout the United- States and Canada. It does not conduct its own fund-raising in the United States; it receives instead more than $3.6 million a year from the Joint Distribution Committee toward its $45 million annual budget, in addition to funds which Women's American ORT and other ORT groups raise separately.