I
i
ORT Marks
Anniversary
By Expansion
Carl Levin
as a Liberal
and a Recollection
of an Episode
About Jewish
'Illiberal'
assembled at the Hyatt Regency as a national board meeting, turned
into a convention with decision-making for the years ahead.
While Women's American ORT already numbers many
thousands, the sessions here launched an extensive member-
ship drive as an aid to ORT in the many lands in which it
functions.
Emphasis was given to a review of the ORT program in Israel, in
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THE JEWISH NEWS
A Weekly Review
Commentary, Page 2
AWOL. LXXIV, No. 9
Marking the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Women's
American ORT movement, more than 300 delegates from 100
American Jewish communities assembled here this week for a
three-day conference, adopted plans for expanded programming and
aid to the chain of vocational schools in which young Jews are
trained for productive activities.
Preparatory to the celebration of the centenary of the ORT move-
ment, to be observed globally in 1980, the meetings here, while
!%
Distressing
U.S. Comfort
for UN Travesty
in Support of
PLO Hate Campaign
of Jewish Events
Editorial, Page 4
17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-9833 $12.00 Per Year: This Issue 30c Nov. 3, 1978
Negotiations Make Progress
Despite the U.S. Displeasure
Nobel Recipients Acclaimed
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Premier Menahem Begin and President Anwar Sadat
of Egypt congratulated each other warmly over their sharing of the 1978 Nobel
Peace Prize, in a telephone conversation between Jerusalem and Cairo Satur-
day night. Begin, who had refrained from responding publicly to the announce-
ment of the award in Oslo late Friday because of the Sabbath initiated the call to
Sadat from his home as soon as the Sabbath ended.
Both leaders had fulsome praise for President Carter, who Sadat char-
acterized as "the unknown soldier in this process" toward peace. Later, in a
statement to reporters, who had been waiting patiently outside his home, Begin
said the prize "has in fact been given to the entire people of Israel and I am
nothing but the emissary."
Messages of congratulations from world leaders began pouring into
Jerusalem Friday. One of the first, from President Carter, congratulated
Begin "for this honor you so fully deserve" and stressed that "the work
you have done so far must not be left uncompleted." The President sent
an identical message to Sadat in Cairo.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said in a message Friday, "I warmly congratu-
late President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin on their selection for the Nobel
Peace Prize. We are proud the United States has been so closely associated with
their achievements."
(Continued on Page 6)
MENAHEM BEGIN
ANWAR SADAT
By JOSEPH POLAKOFF
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Carter Administration's apparent displeasure with
Israel's refusal to give ground on the West Bank settlements issue continued to slow the
negotiations for an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
In contrast to optimistic comments from Israeli and Egyptian leaders about the
possibility that a treaty could be signed on Dec. 10, in Oslo, when the 1978 Nobel Peace
Prize is awarded to Israeli Premier Menahem Begin and President Anwar Sadat of
Egypt, the official spokesman for the Blair House conferees, George Sherman, had little
cheer to offer.
"The overel negotiations continue to move forward" and they are "serious and
systematic," Sherman said Tuesday. Wednesday morning, responding to reporters'
questions after they emerged from meeting with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, both
Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Egyptian Undersecretary for Foreign Af-
fairs Usama Al-Baz answered in the affirmative when asked if the Blair House talks
were "all wrapped up" and if an agreement was near completion. But Sherman hedged
again.
Apart, from the settlements issue, another event that may lengthen the Blair
House conference, now ending its second week, is the Arab League meeting in
Baghdad which started Thursday on how to block the Israeli-Egyptian peace
movement. A factor in that conclave is the agitation by Syria and the Palestine
Liberation Organization to expel Egypt from the 22-nation Arab League.
These developments plus elections in the U.S. on Tuesday appears to have sobered the
zeal with which the Carter Administration has sought to satisfy Jordan, the Palestinian
Arabs and Saudi Arabia at Israel's expense. That the Administration chose this time,
when Israel and Egypt are nearing a peace agreement, is believed to be based on
opposition by the Carter Administration to a separate Egyptian-Israeli peace although
it would not acknowledge this publicly.
Reliable sources, therefore, see progress towards an Egyptian-Israeli treaty on all
points of the nine articles in the draft, the preamble and the three annexes to keep the
momentum going. But the timing for a conclusion is uncertain. So is the ultimate
compromise on linking the bilateral treaty with the West Bank-Gaza Strip proceedings
that presumably will remain hazy pending developments in Baghdad and a possible
Carter-Begin meeting.
The difficulties over the treaty's completion, according to these sources, lie not with
the Egyptians who are prepared for a quick writing of a peace pact at Blair House but
with the Carter Administration whose Middle East specialists want tq move toward a
"comprehensive" agreement before the Egyptians sign with the Israelis and thereby
deprive the Carter Administration of diplomatic leverage on Israel.
The White House said Tuesday that neither President Carter nor Secretary
Vance planned to meet with Premier Begin during his current U.S. visit. Begin
arrived in New York Wednesday. White House Press Secretary Jody Powell told
.
(Continued on Page 14)
Swedish U.S. Movements Making Gains for Raoul Wallenberg
1 national movement in the
nited States and renewed efforts
in Sweden may shed new light on
the case of Raoul Wallenberg, the
University of Michigan graduate
who saved 25,000-50,000 Hunga-
rian Jews from extermination by the
Nazis during World War II. Wal-
lenberg disappeared while in Soviet
custody in 1945 after Soviet troops
gained control of Budapest.
-
Dr. and Mrs. Lantos, 5850 Came-
ron Run Terrace, Apt. 809, Alexan-
dria, Va. 22303, have organized a
U.S. movement on behalf of Wallen-
berg.
By MAURICE SAMUELSON
LONDON (JTA) — New information may soon become available about attempts to solve one of the most
poignant puzzles of the 20th Century. The Swedish government will consider publishing some of its documents
about the case of Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who disappeared in Soviet captivity 33 years ago after
heroically saving thousands of Hungarian Jews from Adolf Eichmann's death squads.
A report from Stockholm said that the government would decide which of the 7,000 documents in its
Wallenberg file can be published despite the rule forbidding the disclosure of state papers for 50 years.
The move was greeted as a partial victory by circles in Sweden who have been petitioning for
publication of the Foreign Ministry's entire Wallenberg file, its biggest on a single individual. The
Swedish government has never been satisfied with the Soviet Union's claim that Wallenberg died in the
Lubyanka Prison in Moscow in 1947 at the hands of Stalin's secret police.
Its file contains statements by many people that Wallenberg had been seen alive long after he was supposed to
have died and that he had been sentenced to a lengthy prison term. The latest "sighting" was reported in the early
19608 and new evidence is still emerging. Were he alive today he would be 66.
Wallenberg's mother, Mrs. Maj Von Dardel, is now 87 and his step father, Frederik Von Dardel, is 93. Both are
well for their age and have not despaired of learning something about Raoul Wallenberg's fate before they die.
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RAOUL WALLENBERG