Allied Jewish Campaign Generosity Marks
Community's Message of Cheer to Israelis
$13,400,000 in Contributions,
$4,500,000 for 'Project Renewal'
Inaugurate Current Solicitations
Transformed into a demonstration of gratitude for the developing
peace agreements between Israel and Egypt, the opening dinner of the
1979 Allied Jewish Campaign served, by expressions of generosity, as a
message to the people of Israel that this community retains its solidarity
pith the hitherto embattled Jewish state to labor for its progress and
security.
The announcement of initial gifts of $13,409,236 to the regular fund
and an additional $4,583,078 for the coming five years for Project Renewal
indicated the communal interest as it was interpreted in the reports and
the evening's speeches in which the success of President Carter's peace
mission was received with enthusiasm.
Equal commitment was expressed at the opening dinner meet-
ing to the more than 50 causes included in the Allied Jewish Cam-
paign. The major local and national educational and social service
projects, and Israeli causes, are included in the Campaign alloca-
tions.
George Zeltzer, president of the Jewish Welfare Federation, and
David Handleman, co-general chairman of the 1979 Allied Jewish Cam-
paign, were enthused by the record audience of more than 500 that
attended the affair at Temple Beth El and the progress towards a peace
treaty between Israel and Egypt.
The evening's speaker, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, brought a more
sobering note to the audience, stating that he is not as optimistic about
peace in the Middle East. "Last year's jet sales and this year's oil politics
give pause for thought," Levin said.
Referring to his deep roots in Detroit's Jewish community and the
duty of good citizens to address themselves to internal problems, Levin
noted that America's domestic problems and foreign problems are related.
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Shown at Wednesday's opening dinner for the Allied Jewish
Campaign - Israel Emergency Fund are, seated from left, Arthur
Howard, George Zeltzer and David Handleman. Standing are Sen.
Carl Levin, left, and Irving R. Seligman.
THE JEWISH NEWS
A Weekly Review
VOL. LXXV, No. 3
of Jewish Events
17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 March 23, 1979
2 p.m. Peace Signing Monday
Historic Hour Arrives
Conflicts Remain on Agenda
The historic hour is nearing.
Signing of the peace pact between Israel and Egypt will take place at 2 p.m. Monday in
Washington. That hour was set in deference to the people of Israel, the deeply involved factor
in the developing negotiations, so that they may witness the event on television at 9 p.m.
Israeli time. The approved treaties, in Hebrew, Arabic and English, also will be signed in
Jerusalem and Cairo on April 2.
Two groups of Israelis will be arriving in New York today and Sunday. Prime Minister
Menahem Begin is scheduled to come with the first group of Israeli government officials
before sundown today. Begin is scheduled to address American Jewish leaders in New York
next Wednesday.
The Knesset voted to approve the American-proposed peace agreement by a vote
of 95-18; with two abstentions, three not participating and two absent. The vote came
after two days of acrimonious debate. Earlier, the Cabinet voted 15 to 2 to approve
the agreement. The opposing votes were by Ariel Sharon and Haim Landau. Begin, it
was reported, threatened to fire any Cabinet
minister who abstained or voted against the
peace pact in the Knesset.
Although the volatile issue of autonomy for
the West Bank and Gaza Strip was discussed dur-
ing the Cabinet's five-hour debate Monday, an
all-out fight was averted when the Cabinet ap-
proved Begin's proposal to appoint an 11-member
ministerial committee under his personal chair-
manship to draft a program for autonomy in those
territories.
The Knesset's two-day marathon debate on
Peace!
the peace treaty and all of its annexes was opened
by Begin Tuesday morning. He spoke for well over an hour in defense of the treaty but vowed
repeatedly that there would never be a Palestinian state and that autonomy on the West
Bank and Gaza Strip would apply to the people, not the land they live on.
Begin was heckled by Communist MKs and diehard members of Begin's own Herut
faction, notably Moshe Arens.
Begin was followed on the podium by Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres who
stressed, "The Labor Party supports and will always support territorial compromise
because the only alternative to such compromise is the loss of all territory."
The Labor Party threatened earlier to invoke party sanctions against any of its members
JNF Will Triple Reclamation
After Peace Treaty Is Signed
NEW YORK (JTA) — Moshe Rivlin, chairman of the Jewish National Fund board of
directors, declared Monday night that "as a direct consequence of the signing of a peace
treaty between Israel and Egypt, the JNF will triple its operations in reclamation and
development of new areas, especially in the Negev." Rivlin disclosed that contingency
plans have already been worked out between the JNF and the Israeli government and
Jewish Agency authorities to begin the work immediately after the signing of the treaty.
Rivlin made the announcement at the JNF's gala dinner at the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel, where 500 delegates from throughout the U.S. attended the _two-day national
assembly of the JNF.
Addressing more than 300 guests and JNF leaders at the dinner, Rivlin said
that the board of directors of the JNF is about to approve a budget that will
enable the JNF to build the infrastructure for 20 new settlements on the Israeli
side of the Sinai border and to add new settlements in the Arava portion of the
Negev further to the east on the border with Jordan.
Rivlin also said the new JNF budget will provide for the building of 29 outposts or
"lookouts" in the unsettled, rocky areas of the Galilee.
Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ephraim Evron, who came to the dinner after
,- participating in Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman's meeting with Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown in Washing-ton, said that Israel is approaching a new era and
"standing on a threshold of a new challenge" with the signing of the peace treaty with
Egypt. "I believe that the peace treaty with Egypt will change the whole character of
relations in the Mideast," Evron predicted.
But he cautioned that no one should expect "wonders" after the peace treaty is
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2 Prominent Iran Jews Jailed;
1,000 Children Coming to U.S.
PARIS (JTA) — The former president of the Iranian Jewish community, Habib el
Ghanian, and Jewish businessman Ruhollah Ray were reportedly arrested last Friday by
police. The two are being held in Teheran's special prison for political suspects. They have
not been formally charged but are reportedly accused of "corruption" and of "having
profited from the Shah's regime."
According to other reports from Teheran, police officials have drawn up a list of some
4,000 Jewish "suspects" who will not be allowed to leave the country once Iran's borders
open for male nationals to travel.
Many of Iran's Jews are now sending their children abroad and several
hundred Iranian Jewish children arrived last week in Rome. The children, who
are being cared for by the Lubavitcher movement and the Otzar Hatorah organ-
ization, are housed in Ostia while waiting for transportation to the U.S.
These two organizations have reportedly been promised American visas for the
children who are expected to number over 1,000 before the end of the month. Iran is
allowing them to leave. (Reportedly 26 of the children may be placed at Detroit's
Yeshivath Beth Yehuda.)
Jewish Agency chairman Leon Dulzin, in Paris for an international symposium on
Soviet Jewry, told a press conference that in spite of the Iranian government's decision
not to permit Iranian adult males to leave the country "we can help them to do so as we
have done for Jews in the other countries where they were in danger." Dulzin refused to
give any details.
He said that 14,000 Iranian Jews settled in Israel during the recent upheavals and
9,000 stayed there as tourists. Some 2,000 have returned to Iran and 5,000 others have
left for other destinations.