Romania Chief Rabbi Demands Extradition
of Michigan's Valerian Trifa for '41 Pogrom
BUCHAREST (JTA) — Romanian Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen called for the extradition to Romania of the two men
allegedly responsible for the January 1941 massacre of Bucharest's Jewish community. The two are Bishop Valerian
Trifa who now lives in Grass Lake, Mich., and Father Vasile Boldeanu who is in Paris.
The call was launched last week during a memorial service for the pogrom's victims, many of whom were burned alive
when Iron Guard mobs stormed through the Jewish quarter and set fire to synagogues and various Jewish institutions.
Trifa is charged with leading the crowds and Boldeanu served at the time as the Iron Guard's Secretary General, Rosen
recalled.
In 1976, after 25 years in this country, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the -Justice Department
charged Trifa with concealing his Iron Guard past when he entered
• • the U.S. and again when he applied for citizenship.
VALERIAN TRIFA
1111
Libyans
\
Under Qaddafi:
Their Murderous
Acts Affected
Entire World
The case was pending in U.S. District Court in Detroit for two years and then placed last year under the jurisdiction of
a special Justice Departments unit in Washington, D.C.
THE JEWISH NEWS
Commentary, Page 2
A Weekly Review
of Jewish Events
MOSES ROSEN
Terror
for Mankind
from Libya
Dilemmas
as Plagues
for Israel
Editorials, Page 4
VOL. LXXIV, No. 22 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $12.00 Per Year: This Issue 30c Feb. 2, 1979
Ordination of Women Rabbis
Backed by Conservative Unit
Building Fund Drive
for MSU Hillel House
Inauguration of a building fund drive to purchase a
vitally-needed new home for the Bnai Brith Hillel Founda-
tion at Michigan State University in East Lansing has
gained momentum with support pledged by leaders on a
state-wide basis. -
According to Rabbi Daniel Allen, director of MSU
Hillel, the 50-year-old Hillel building at MSU served 150
Jewish students when it was converted to Hillel House in
1947. Today there are an estimated 3,000 Jewish students
attending Michigan State.
Rabbi Allen said the old building is woefully in-
adequate for religious, cultural and counseling ac-
tivities and needs major repairs. The MSU Hillel
House board found a newer building close to campus,
and the Hillel Foundation is seeking to raise $400,000
to purchase, remodel and furnish the building. The
new facility was built in the mid-1960s and is currently
used for student housing. - /
It is more conveniently located, will provide more wor-
ship space, live-in rooms for students, a kitchen for Sabbath
and Passover meals and more space for Hillel program-
ming, according to Rabbi Alleh.
Gov. William Milliken, MSU President Edgar L. Harden
(Continued on Page 5)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The recommendation that "qualified women be ordained as rabbis in the
Conservative movement" was submitted Tuesday night to the 79th annual convention of the Rabbinical
Assembly, the international organization of Conservative rabbis. The recommendation was contained in
the final report of the Cominission for the Study of the 'Ordination of Women as Rabbis, composed of 14
members representing the range of background and opinion of the Conservative movement in Judaism.
Dr. Gerson D. Cohen; chancellor of the ,Jewish Theological Seminary of America, reported on the
conclusions of the commission, which he had convened in 1977 at the request of the Rabbinical Assembly,
and which he has led as chairman.
According to the 29-page report, which includes both a majority and minority opinion, the majority
recommendations, supported by 11 of the 14 commission members are:
• That the rabbinical school of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America revise its
admission procedures to allow for applications from female candidates and the processing
thereof for the purpose of admission to the ordination program on a basis equal to that main-
tained heretofore for males.
• That this revision of policy be
accomplished as quickly as possible,
preferably so as to allow applications
Five hundred additional immigrants will join the Jewish commun-
from women for the academic year
ity of Detroit in 1979 as its share in the nationwide program to absorb a
beginning in September 1979.
new influx Prom the Soviet Union.
• That the Jewish Theological
The Board of Governors of the Jewish Welfare Federation, meeting
Seminary of America take steps to
with the United Jewish Charities at its annual meeting, voted to
extend every effort toward this end through the services of Federation
set up appropriate apparatuses for
agencies. Some 30,000 persons may arrive in the U.S. from the Soviet
the recruitment, orientation, and
Union in .1979, more than double the 1978 figure.
-eventually, career plcement of
Federation President George M. Zeltzer said that Detroit's readi-
female rabbinical students.
ness to resettle the Russian immigrants is an expression of this com-
• That the major arms of the Con-
munity's sense of responsibility for fellow Jews in need. Resettlement
500 Soviet Jews Are Due
(Continued on Page 6)
(Continued on Page 5)
Tightened Restrictions= and Harassment Jeopardize Syrian Jewry
(Editor'S note: The American Jewish Committee has issued a background
rt on the recent deterioration in the position of the Jews of Syria. In the past
weeks there has been a dramatic worsening of the attitude of the Syrian
NEW YORK = In the last month alone
some 20 men in Damascus and Aleppo
were brutally beaten and detained for sev-
eral days by the Muhabarat (intelligence
or secret police), apparentl-y because they
were suspected of helping Jewish families
who successfully managed to flee the coun-
try. Syria continues to bar Jewish emigra-
tion.
The Syrian authorities have also reim-
posed restrictions on internal travel and
transfer of property that had previously
been lifted. Muhabarat agents are present
at synagogue services, and Jews have been
warned that any Jewish home that does
not have lights on in the evening will im-
mediately be searched. It is not clear
whether these measures are solely promp-
ted by Syrian annoyance at the increased
authorities towards the country's 4,500 remaining Jews. This has led to fears that
all the hard-won improvements in the daily life of the Jewish community in
recent years may now be undone.)
"illegal" dep.arture by Jews or whether
they reflect a fundamental reversal of the
liberalization that had been gradually in-
troduced by President Hafez al-Assad in
the wake of international publicity on the
plight of the Jewish community and the
desire of Syria to improve its relations with
the U.S. -
Syrian-American relations have been
strained recently over Syrian military in-
volvement in Lebanon and Syria's vehe-
ment criticism of the American-backed
Camp David agreements. The growing
rapprochement between the long feuding
Syrian and Iraqi regimes, highlighted by
the visit of Iraqi President Ahmed Hasan
al-Bakr to Damascus amid reports that the
two countries are planning to -unite, also
raises fears in the Jewish community.
.
Iraqi brutality against the Jews has ex-
ceeded that of the Syrians and culminated
in the hangings of Iraqi Jews in Baghdad
in 1969 on false charges of spying for Is-
rael, the U.S: and the -Shah of Iran. (Yet
paradoxically at other times Iraq has per-
mitted its Jews to emigrate freely and
today only some 300 elderly persons re-
main.)
Within Syria itself there have been
persistent reports of attempted coups
by factions opposing the intervention
in Lebanon or the rapprochement with
Iraq and Assad recently replaced sev-
eral military and civilian officials.
Assad is a member of the Shiite minor-
ity (known as Alawis in Syria) and thus
also faces opposition from some Sunni
elements. One cannot now predict the
effect the resurgence of Shiite Islamic
fanaticism in Iran may have upon the
internal situation withhi Syria and the
position of the Jews.
About a year-and-a-half ago, the gov-
ernment removed the requirement that
Jews get written permission from the
Muhabarat for travel from one city to
another. Early in 1977 promises were also
made that the special designation
"Musawi" (of the Mosaic faith) in red ink
on identity cards, passports, drivers'
licenses and banking documents would be
eliminated. New identity cards tended to
have Musawi, entered in blue ink in the
place for religion — although in most new
identity cards for Moslems and Christians
the space is left blank. Some Jews continue
(Continued on Page 7)