THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
8 Friday, February 16, 1919
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Ambassador Hits UN Efforts
for the PLO, Against Israel
NEW YORK (JTA) —
The' United Nations has
been transformed into a
battleground where Israel's
very legitimacy is under
challenge, the Conference of
Presidents of Major Ameri-
can Jewish Organizations
was told by Israel's UN Am-
bassador, Yehuda Blum.
In a report to the UN Task
Force of the Presidents Con-
ference, Blum said that
parallelling the drive to "de-
legitimize Israel" was a
powerful effort to grant
legitimacy and respectabil-
ity to the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization.
The PLO enjoys all the
rights and privileges of UN
membership except the re-
sponsibility of paying dues
and the right to vote, which
it does not need because it
can count on some 90 to 100
automatic anti-Israel bal-
lots in the General Assem-
bly on any given issue,
Blum said.
Hellman,
Yehuda
executive director of the
Presidents Conference,
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said the organization's
UN Task Force would
draw plans for mobiliz-
ing public support across
the country to block ef-
forts at the UN that would
turn over UN Develop-
ment Program funds di-
rectly to the PLO. Such a
Presidents Conference
effort would emphasize
the principle that no UN
funds should go to any
organization whose pur-
pose is to destroy a UN
member state.
Blum, in his presenta-
tion, reported that the office
of UN Secretary General
Kurt Waldheim had pub-
lished a two-volume docu-
ment on the "History and
Origin of the Palestinian.
Question," which presented
only the PLO position and
"utterly -ignored" the facts
presented by Israel in re-
buttal to the draft report.
The report, published by
the Special Unit on the In-
alienable Rights of the
Palestinian People," in-
cludes passages that repeat
PLO propaganda word for
word, Blum noted.
Albert Einstein
to Be Honored
GENEVA (JTA) — The
100th birthday anniversary
of Albert Einstein will be
celebrated at a special
commemorative congress in
Berne next month under the
auspices of the president of
Switzerland with the par-
ticipation of the United Na-
tions Educational, Scien-
tific and Cultural Organiza-
tion (UNESCO), the Berne
municipality and univer-
sity and the Swiss Commit-
tee for Albert Einstein. -
Some 800 persons are ex-
pected to attend, including a
number of Nobel laureates.
The theme will be "Peace
and Liberty."
Einstein, whose special
and general theories of rela-
tivity revolutionized the
scientific concept of the uni-
verse and spurred modern
physics, was a German Jew
by birth. He become a citi-
zen of Switzerland at the
age of 22 and lived in this
country for 17 years. He
never returned to Germany
from the U.S. after 1932 and
became an American citizen
but retained Swiss nation-
ality as well until his death
in 1955.
Israeli Artist
Chats with Sadat
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CAIRO — President
Anwar Sadat of Egypt met
privately with Israeli artist
Zamy Steynovitz for 40
minutes last week, but said
no further cultural ex-
changes would take place
between Israel and Egypt
until there is a peace treaty.
Steynovitz was in Egypt
at Sadat's invitation, and
the 27-year-old Polish-born
Jew is believed to be the
first Israeli to meet with
Sadat in an unofficial
capacity.
A prating fool shall fall.
Boris Smolar's
`Between You
. . . and Me'
Editor-in-Chief
Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1979, JTA, Inc.)
THE SYNAGOGUE CRISIS: The synagogue on my
street in New York serves as a social center for the entire
neighborhood. Jews and non-Jews hold joint meetings
there on problems concerning relations with municipal
authorities. Police representatives address meetings of
tenants on methods of security. Interreligious neighbor-
hood bazaars are being held there for charitable causes.
Lectures, open to all, are being delivered by prominent
speakers. And, of course, there is the congregational school
for Jewish children and courses on Judaism for adults.
However, this year things were different.
As I looked out from my window to the synagogue on
the first evening this Hanuka, I was puzzled to see the
building — usually under floodlights on Jewish holidays —
wrapped in total darkness. No Hanuka illumination at the
entrance. No menora lit on the top. No crowds milling at the
door.
I wondered what happened, and I left my apartment to
find out. There was nobody in front of the synagogue build-
ing whom to ask. But I got the answer from a small sign on
the door. It read:
"Sanctuary of the Korean Community of New York."
The sign, in English and Korean letters, was a shock to
me. The Jewish congregation, although composed of wel-
to-do members, could not meet the payments on the
mortgage of the building. It quietly sold the building to the
Korean group.
THE BANKRUPTCY CLOUDS: The tragedy of the
synagogue on my street is the tragedy of many synagogues
throughout the country. They face bankruptcy because
they cannot meet their mortgage payments and have diffi-
culties in renewing them. They also suffer from the mount-
ing cost of maintaining a synagogue caused by growing
inflation. It is estimated by some rabbis that 25 percent of
the congregations in the U.S. are now on the verge of
bankruptcy. In Greater New York there were some 1,200
synagogues 25 years ago. Today there are only about 800.
These do not include the "shtiblakh" — the very small
Orthodox prayer houses. In Manhattan, only 10 percent of
the Jewish population are members of synagogues, accord-
ing to an estimate by experts of the New York Federation of
Jewish Philanthropies. In Brooklyn, where some sections
are thickly.inhabited by Hasidim and other religious Jews,
only about 35 percent of the Jewish residents are now
synagogue members.
In the New York suburbs — where many beautiful
synagogues were built by the young Jewish families after
World War II — only about 50 percent of the entire Jewish
population are today members of synagogues.
Nevertheless, congregations in the suburbs find them-
selves now in financial difficulties, and worry greatly about
meeting payments on the mortgages- of their modern
synagogue buildings. Old members are falling off because
families are moving from the suburbs back to the cities. No
new members join. The very young couples claim that
membership dues in a synagogue are too high for them.
Those who have children of early school-age find it even
more difficult to join a congregation, because the tuition for
their children runs to $500 or more a year for each child.
FEDERATION-SYNAGOGUE RELATIONS: The
synagogue, one of the strongest pillars of Judaism in
America, is thus facing serious problems not only because
Jews are moving away from old neighborhoods — as was
the case until now — but because their existence is jeopar-
dized to a great extent by inflation.
In recent years there has been a dialogue in the or-
ganized Jewish communities regarding the effective rela-
tionship between the synagogues and the Jewish federa-
tions. Guidelines on federation-synagogue relations have
now been issued by the Council of Jewish. Federations.
They emphasize that the forces of history have now under-
scored the urgency of the need for such a relationship. Both
organizations find now that their cominon concerns bring
theM together in the goal of strengthening the quality of
Jewish life, meeting Jewish needs, and reaching out to
involve larger numbers of people in Jewish life and con-
cerns.
The strengthening of federation-synagogue relations is
now high on the CJF agenda. Added communal strength to
the synagogue may help to solve some of the problems
which congregations face today. However, at the heart of
the federation system is the principle that funds are allo-
cated by the federations only on the basis of knowledge,
review and monitoring the specific activities to be sup-
ported. Synagogue-related activities which seek federation
funding need to relate to that system.