--„
Human Rights Day
and the Battle
for Justice
Dilemma of
Iranian Jewry
THE JEWISH NE
Editorials, Page 4
A Weekly Review
of Jewish Events
History of UJA
Carved in Multiple
Achievements
Rooted in Many
Reminiscences
Boris Smolar's
Column, Page 49
VOL. LXXIV, No. 14 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $12.00 Per Year This Issue 30c,. Dec. 8, 1978
mice Shuttle Hopes to Avert
Latest Crisis in Peace Talks
UAHC Seek Converts
Among 'Un-Churched'
HUSTON (JTA) — A proposal by Rabbi Alexander
Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations (UAHC) that Reform Judaism actively
recruit converts to the Jewish faith among "the un-
churched," was approved by the UAHC's policy-making
board at its meeting Sunday. The board acted in response to
Schindler's plea for "an effort of affirmative action to turn
the tide which threatens to sweep us away, into directions
which might enable us to recover our numbers and re-
charge our inner strength." He was alluding to the erosion
of the number of practicing Jews in the United States
because of a declining birth rate, intermarriage and assimi-
lation.
Although his proposal would reverse a centuries-old
Jewish tradition that eschews and even disCourages pro-
seletyzing non-Jews, the Reform leader contended that
"the notion that Judiasm was never a missionary faith is
wide of the truth."
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Carter, fa.ced with stalemate and possible
collapse of the Egyptian-Israeli treaty talks he has fostered, has directed Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance to go to Cairo Sunday and to Jerusalem thereafter in an attempt to
bring about the resumption of negotiations between the two countries.
The President made his decision Monday night, the State Department disclosed,
after Vance had consulted with both the Israeli and Egyptian governments and with
the knowledge of the contents of the letters recently exchanged between President
Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Premier Menahem Begin of Israel and the long series of
talks over the weekend by President Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, Vance
and other officials with visiting Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil.
An atmosphere of desperation to save the talks from foundering arose from
Vance's cancellation of his attendance at a meeting of the NATO ministers in
CYRUS VANCE
Brussels Thursday and today to prepare for his Middle East journey. Al-
though dropping the Brussels meeting, Vance will fly to London today for an address before the
Royal Institute for Foreign Affairs on Saturday.
"Very senior sources" in Jerusalem were reported Tuesday as saying that the current peace negotiations
with Egypt face a major crisis that could end in deadlock unless Israel and Egypt adopt new decisions.
The sources said, according to the newspaper Haaretz, that the widespread assumption that Israel and
Egypt have gone too far down the road to peace to turn back is erroneous and that, in fact, a whole year of
intensive negotiations may go down the drain. It was disclosed that Israeli andEgyptian officials have held
intensive telephone conversations during the last few days in an effort to reach a basis for resuming the
(Continued on Page 5)
He said it was "time for our Reform Jewish move-
ment to launch a carefully conceived and adequately
funded out-reach program aimed at all Americans
_who are un-churched and who are seeking roots in
religion." He indicated, however, that the focus of the
effort should be non-Jewish spouses in mixed mar.
riages.
Arab Fldg Rejected for Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (ZINS) — At Camp David, American diplomats proposed that a Moslem flag
be permitted to fly over the Temple Mount in order to appease the Arabs. Israeli Prime Minister
Menahem Begin replied that the Temple Mount is the highest point in the Old City and such a
flag would be interpreted as Arab control of Jerusalem.
The flag proposal was originally suggested by Moshe Dayan after the Six-Day War in 1967.
The feeling at that time was that Israel was prepared to return all the territories captured in
the 1967 war, with the exception of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
He criticized congregaions that fail to integrate the non-
Jewish partner. "We do not help them to make a Jewish
home, to rear their children Jewishly, or, more seriously,
we do not really embrace them,or enable them to feel a close
kinship with our people," he said. Schindler stressed that
he was not advocating evangelic -al activities among prac-
ticing members of other faiths.
"I want to reach a different audience entirely," he said,
"the unchurched . . . the seekers after truth who require a
religion which tolerates, nay, encourages, all questions and
(Continued on Page 7)
In that context Dayan agreed that a Jordanian flag might be flown from the Temple
Mount. But King Hussein of Jordan rejected the proposal, demanding the return of the
Old City of Jerusalem.
MOSHE DAYAN
During the Camp David negotiations the Americans revived the Dayan proposal. But Begin
replied, "If all 22 Arab states will make peace with us then we will permit 22 Arab flags to be
flown in Jerusalem. However, one Moslem flag over our holy mount will not be tolerated, and
certainly we will not entertain any talk of extra-territoriallity for the Moslems similar to the
Vatican in Rome."
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Kissinger on Survival and Commitment of the Jew sh Community
(Editor's note: The following remarks by former Secretary of State Henry A.
- Kissinger were delivered before the national executive council of the American
Jewish Committee last month when Dr. Kissinger received the American Liber-
ties Medallion.)
My relationship to the Jewish community and to the Jewish people was inevitably a
complex one when I was in office. No one could have gone through the experiences of my
youth, and my life without having a poignant reminder of the Jewish destiny. Nobody
can have lived in a totalitarian state and left members of his family in concentration
mps, without knowing that — for the Jewish people, perhaps more
any-other — the loss of justice anywhere in the world is a threat
. i their own existence, and peace anywhere is a guarantee for their
own future. Obviously, it was my duty as Secretary of State to embed
this into the policies of the country that received me as a refugee and
gave me an opportunity to serve my country and my people, in the
sense that whatever served peace-and justice, served both of these
privileges.
I flew in October 1973 from Moscow to Tel Aviv on the day that the
Armistice went into effect. And while in the years to come there
Were many debates in both the administration that I served and the
administrations that succeeded us, about the specific issues, nobody
could--have been in Israel on that last day of the war and seen the
exhaustion, the fear, and the exhilaration without coming away
with a determination that this had to be, if human effort could
achieve it, the last war to which the people of Israel and their
adversaries should be exposed.
day after the Nobel Peace Prize had been awardd to President Sadat and Prime
Minister Begin, with appropriately special mention to President Carter.
But I would like to make a few comments about what now may be ahead of us. I have
publicly, repeatedly supported the agreement at Camp David and expressed my high
regard to the Administration and the President for bringing it about. I believe it will
mark a major breakthrough towards peace, and will lead to other negotiations, especially
if we do not attempt to repeat the precise performance through which this particular
agreement was negotiatied. and move at a pace which is as fast as possible but not faster
than is possible.
But I do not want to talk about the negotiations that are now
ahead of us and that hopefully will be consumated as far as Egypt
and Israel are concerned, in my view, in the very near future. I would
like to talk to this group about the special problems that, in my view,
will now be faced by the people of Israel and the American Jewish
community under the conditions of peace. There has never been a
country that has never known aday of peace in its history. Everyone
who knows Israel has been aware of the.fact that the yearning for
that day has endowed it with perhaps extraordinary romantic qual-
ities.
As Americans we can all be proud of the fact that it was our
President who brought President Sadat and Prime Minister
Begin together at Camp David. It's an achievement that goes
beyond whatever differences we have within this country on • •
particular issues. It is appropriate that we meet tonight, the
DR. HENRY KISSINGER
It is a people whose existence reflected a dream, and whose
persistence was based on heroism in the face of constant
overwhelming danger. Now the task will be to preserve that
identity and that sense of dedication. When the threat is no
longer so overwhelming, it is necessary to preserve the com-
mitment of the American Jewish community — under condi-
tions when there are not weekly battles for particular appro-
priations, but the long-term survival of a society that will now
live a less threatened, less heroic, more ordinary existence.
I do not know the answers to this problem, but I think they are
(Continued on Page 7)