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Friday, teptimber 15, 110
Purely Commentary
Another Community Under Fire:
Progressive Nicaraguan Jewry
Another Jewish community, albeit very small, may be
affected by a crisis involving the troubles of their country-
men.
Nicaraguan Jewry may not number more than 200. Yet
they function as a community. They have a synagogue that
serves as a communal center and a school. They respond to
Jewish needs. They have and had' Israeli consuls.
They came from Poland, Romania and Hungary. Their
first minyan was organized in 1935 upon the birth of the
first boy child and the occasion of the first circumcision.
Quickly, the community developed. It has, since the early
1940s, a strong WIZO chapter, the Women's International
Zionist Organization which is the equaivalent of Hadassah.
It has a Zionist Organization; a Jewish National Fund
committee; it conducts fund-raising for Israel, all suc-
cessfully.
Nicaraguan Jews are part of a well-organized section of
the World Jewish Congress which includes a number of
Latin American countries.
The Nicaraguan Jews are engaged both in commerce and
in agriculture. Their close links with Israel have
encouraged large exports from Israel and in one year, in
1969, $100,000 worth of. synthetic fibers were exported
from Israel to Nicaragua.
While some Jews lived in Nicaragua in the late 19th
Century, it is the community that was established in the
1930s that has the role of an organized Jewry in that land.
Most Jews live in Managua where the Congregation Is-
raelita d'Nicaragua is headquartered.
The Jews of Nicaragua are engaged in mercantile activi-
ties. They get along well with their neighbors. How the
current revolt will affect them and their future remains to
be judged on the basis of all of Nicaragua.
Iran the More Serious
Threat to 70,000 Jews
Iran presents a very serious problem for the world be-
cause of the Russian threat to that nation and therefore as a
possible eventual eruption into an international crisis; and
to the country's 70,000 Jews whose security had depended
through the years on the protection assured them by the
Shah.
Iranian Jews have always prayed for the welfare of the
Shah because their fate depends so much on his retention of
power over the fanatic Moslem tribes, especially in the
north.
The fact that 60 percent of Israel's oil supplies come from
Iran, with the blessings of the Shah, also have a deep effect
on Jewish-Iranian relations.
It is no wonder that there are the usual rumors about
Israeli military support for Iran — as if that were possible.
The conditions enabling a Christian-Israeli alliance in
Lebanon is vastly different from the Iranian possibilities
for such an accord.
Thus, in Iran, Jewish rights may be affected by internal
revolutionary uprisings.
•
Lord Caradon: A More Positive
Approach to His UN Role
Because of a recent criticism of Lord Caradon in these
columns, it is necessary to indicate the more affirmative
role he played in the adoption of UN Resolution 242.
The Consulate General of Israel in Chicago calls atten-
tion to the Caradon attitude in the following statement:
Commenting
on
President
Sadat's
speech of Aug. 14 to his
new political party, the
state-controlled Egyp-
tian broadcasting sta-
tion asked, with refer-
ence to the possibility of
territorial compromise
in Sinai or the West
Bank: "Can anyone be-
lieve that we shall give
up even one inch of holy
territory?"
In this connection, it
is interesting to note
that, contrary to
Egypt's inflexible stand
on the question of Is-
rael's borders and secu-
rity needs, Lord Cara-
don, who was one of the
LORD CARADON
two authors of Resolu-
tion 242 of the Security Council of the UN, has
stated very clearly that the above UN decision
does not call for a return by Israel to the old 1967
borders. On the TV program "MacNeil-Lehrer
Report," Lord Caradon recently said:
"We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to
the '67 lines; we did not put the 'the' in, we did not
Nicaraguan Jewry in the Midst of a Crisis
Claims Unusual Background in Jewish Ranks
. . . The Shah's Fate Affects Iranian Jewry
say 'all the territories,' deliberately. I happen to
know those boundaries as well as any living man.
They're bad boundaries; they're just where the
troops happened to be at a cease-fire line 20 years
before, just where they happened to be sitting.
The Arab Legion was sitting across the road from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and, therefore, there had to
be a detour right up to 1967. So we knew — we all
knew — that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn
as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line
of a couple of decades earlier. So we deliberately
did not say — I'm glad to be able to say that — we
did not say that the '67 boundaries must be
forever."
By Philip
Slomovitz
Laughing at the Reporters
Who Are Interviewing Each Other
One wonders whether the White House official staff is in
guffaws over the status of the media.
Newsmen, broadcasters and commentators who always
had a free hand in almost everything they tackled, because
leaks are so common in diplomacy, now are helpless on the
outskirts of Camp David. There are no leaks, only a few
winks and finger signs a la the deaf.
The reporters, gathered at great expense from the entire
country and from many foreign lands, including Israel, are
speculating and resorting to rumors which prove unsph-
staRtiated all-too-often. They could have sat in their of
awaiting the news via the telephone.
This is too serious a portion of the official UN records on
Yet, something may break at any moment that could
the issue to be ignored. It negates the earlier criticism of prove of international significance. Therefore, the store
LordCaradon while establishing a basic fact about a debat- must be watched and word awaited from the silence-
able subject that needs clarification for an appreciation of enforced Camp David atmosphere.
the position pursued by the Israeli government and Prime
Regardless, this is an interesting age and the historic
Minister Menahem Begin.
moment is awaited with bated breath.
Kennedy Says Soviets May Release Some Wishing to Exit
WASHINGTON — Eigh-
teen Soviet families trying
to emigrate may be allowed
to leave soon, Sen. Edward
M.-Kennedy (D-Mass.) said
after returning from his
meeting last week with
Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev.
Kennedy said the 18
families include those of Dr.
Benjamin Levich, a re-
spected physical chemist,
and of Mr. and Mrs. Boris
Katz, whose infant daugh-
ter, Jessica, recently at-
tracted concern in the U.S.
because of her inability to
digest normal food.
Meanwhile, a Russian
Zionist heroine, unheard
from for more than 30 years,
has re-emerged as a "re-
fuseiiik" trapped in the
depths of the USSR, accord-
ing to the Student Struggle
for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ).
The SSSJ reported that
the then 18-year-old Bella
(Bilha) Alshkovsky
joined the Bnei Akiva
Zionist youth move-
ment's hacksharak (pre-
paratory) Kibutz Av-
raham in Slobodka, near
Kovno, training for a fu-
ture life in Palestine.
A survivor of the labor
camps, she has since mar-
ried, had a son and applied
for and was refused an exit
visa. The rigors of the labor
camp have not left her and
she has been repeatedly
hospitalized.
Meanwhile, it was
learned that Solomon
Slepak, 87, the father of
banished Soviet Jewish dis-
sident Vladimir Slepak has
died.
He rejected his son for
announcing plans to emi-
grate to Israel. Vladimir
Slepak is now in exile in
Siberia because he hung a
* * *
Program to Focus
on Soviet Jewry
A century of Russian
Jewish life will be the focus
of a special television
broadcast, "L'Chaim — to
Life!," to be aired 10 p.m.
Oct. 8 on Channel 56.
The broadcast, narrated
by Eli Wallach, features
photographs from renowned
photographer Roman Vis-
hniac and rare motion pic-
ture footage culled from
archives all over the world.
banner outside his apart-
ment window to protest the
long wait for an exit visa.
In a related develop-
ment, the American
Jewish Congress has
called on the U.S. Olym-
pic Committee to demand
assurances that the
Soviet Union will not dis-
criminate against Rus-
sian Jews or Jewish vis-
itors from abroad when it
hosts the 1980 Olympics.
leged grounds that no hotel
space was available.
Howard Squadron,
president of the AJCon-
gress, said that the rabbi
was refused the visa despite
the fact that his traveling
companion, a member of the
Danish Parliament, who
also had no hotel reserva-
tions, was granted a visa.
The Al Tidom Association
reported, meanwhile, that
the members of a newly
The AJCongress blasted
the Soviets for their refusal
to grant a visa to the Chief
Rabbi of Denmark on the al-
1978 AJC IEF Volunteers
Honored at DSG Stag Day
formed Moscow Jewish
theatrical group touring
Jewish communities in the
Soviet Union to become bet-
ter acquainted with Jewish
tradition, ceremonies and
places of interest were de-
eply moved by their visit to
the Leningrad Synagogue
where they were addressed
by an American rabbi,
Jacob Pollak, of Cong.
Shomrei Emunoh of Boro
Park, Brooklyn.
Nazism Upsurge
in Brazil Queried
WASHINGTON (JTA) —
A delegation of the Anti-
Defamation League of Bnai
Brith met with Brazilian
Ambassador Joao Baptista
Pinheiro and expressed con-
cern to him over the "up-
surge in Nazi activity" in
Brazil.
The delegation suggested
a Brazilian government
program to locate and iden-
tify Nazi war criminals be-_
fore the West German law
on war criminals expires
next year.
The delegation cited as
examples of current Nazi
activity in Brazil the break-
ing of windows in
synagogues and other
Jewish communal
structures, Nazi slogans
painted on Jewish and pub-
lic buildings and a display of
Nazi flags in the Brazilian
state of Rio Grande do Sul
where the majority of the
population is of German
origin.
Chinese Talk
With JNF Man
JERUSALEM (JTA) —
Meir Shamir, head of land
development for the Jewish
National Fund in Israel, re-
cently met with a delega-
tion from the People's Re-
public of China at an annual
tree fair in Austria.
The Chinese refused to
attend a private dinner
where Shamir was a guest
because Israel and China do
not maintain diplomatic re-
lations, but they spoke to
him about the forestry of
the two countries.
j
The Detroit Service Group's annual stag day was
held last week to honor the volunteer workers of the
Allied Jewish Campaign. In the top photograph, Phil-
lip Stollman, chairman with Philip Warren of the 1978
Campaign, accepts one of several gifts. Also shown
are, from left, Jewish Welfare Federation Executive
director Sol Drachler, 1977 Campaign Chairman
Daniel Honigman, and Detroit Service Group
President Arthur Howard. In the second photograph
are, from left, stag day committee chairmen Myron L.
Milgrom, Dr. Paul C. Feinberg, Irving Laker and
Robert A. Steinberg. In the bottom photograph, Ber-
nard H. Stollman, left, and Lester S. Burton, chairmen
of the Real Estate and Building Trades Division, hold
the loving cup awarded annually to the division with
the largest increase in pledges to the Allied Jewish
Campaign.