THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 8 Friday, February 16, 1919 FELDBRO QUALITY. MEATS NOW FEATURING IMPORTED & DOMESTIC BEER & WINE USDA CHOICE GROUND CHUCK PATTIES 79 1/4#ers or 1/3#ers lb. NOW OPEN EVERY SUNDAY 9 AM TO 5 PM FELDBRO QUALITY MEATS 6720 ORCHARD LAKE RD. South of Maple West Bloomfield Plaza 626-4656 'OPEN 7 DAYS Mon. thru Sat. 8 to 6 pm SUNDAY 9 to 5 m FREE PARKING 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, Experience Del Mar window fashions in your home. Instantly, rooms come alive with exciting, colorful woven woods. Exquisite yarns and warm, imported woods-available in over a hundred distinctive patterns-bring you into an \ elegant new world. Styles include beautiful shades, dramatic draperies, unique folding door treatments, valances, canopies and special accent pieces. Experience the Del Mar Originals in person. 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 INCOMING FREIGHT ADDED 41:11 iNSTALLATION AVAILABLE , mic PAINT 'Ana tlk WALLPAPER 542-3315 23061 COOLIDGE HWY., OAK PARK, AT 9 MI. 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.