Truisms:
Spirituality
and Persecution
as Factors
in Survival
of the Jews
THE JEWISH NEWS
A Weekly Review
Commentary, Page 2
of Jewish Events
Historic
Anniversary:
Jewish Agency
at Fifty
Israeli Arabs'
Animosity
Editorials, Page 4
VOL. LXXV, No. 16 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $12.00 Per Year: This Issue 30c
June 22, 1979
High Court Halts Alon Moreh
Construction for Thirty Days
A Jewish Bullfighter Is the Subject of
Archival Spanish Anti-Semitic Poem
By REUVEN FREED
The Israeli Supreme Court ordered a halt Wednesday to the
JERUSALEM (JTA)
construction of Alon Moreh, the controversial Gush Emunim settlement near Nablus and
gave the government 30 days to show cause why the settlement should not be removed and
the Arab lands expropriated for it returned to the owners. The temporary injunction was
issued after a panel of three justices heard testimony in an appeal by 17 Arabs from the
Nablus area against the seizure of their land. The court forbade any new settlers from
taking up residence at the site while the injunction is in effect.
Although the court's ruling has doubtlessly embarrassed the government, Israeli legal
experts expressed the opinion that the state eventually will prevail over the appellants by
correcting the defective legal procedures by which the land was confiscated. The appeal
was based on the contention that the government's claim that the settlement is necessary
for security reasons was false and that the land-owners never received a legally valid
notice of seizure.
The most dramatic highlight of Wednesday's hearing was the testimony by two
reserve generals,Haim Bar-Lev, a former chief of staff, and Matityahu Peled, flatly
contradicting a statement signed by the current chief of staff, Gen. Raphael
Eytan, which claimed that Alon Moreh was-of strategic importance to Israel's
defense. Eytan signed the statement Tuesday and it was read to the court Wednes-
day.
He claimed that the hill on which Alon Moreh is located controls communications in
the Samaria region of the West Bank and therefore is vital to security.
But Bar-Lev, who was chief of staff after the Six-Day War and is presently secretary of
the Labor Party, declared in a written statement that Alon Moreh does not contribute to
the security of the state because it is located far from any major roads and is in the heart of a
heavily Arab-populated region. He stated further that, in the event of war, the settlement
will not be able to defend the road to Nablus and that there is a military base not far away
that controls the network of roads around Nablus. The same view was expressed by Peled
who is a leader of the Shelli faction.
Their statements were presented under oath by Elias Khouri, an Israeli Arab attorney
representing the appellants. Such was not the case with Eytan's testimony which was
introduced only as a written statement. This aroused the ire of Justice Moshe Landau who
expressed astonishment that the state did not find it necessary to bring the chief of staff to
testify. "With all due respect for the chief of staff, there is no special legal procedure for
him," Landau said. He noted that the appellants questioned the honesty of the security
—
-
BEERSHEBA — A Jewish bullfighter? The very words themselves seem
to clash. • Now, a historian at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has un-
earthed a manuscript from medieval Spain which not only shows that the
notion was as improbable to them as it is to us, but which also sheds some
hitherto unknown light on the history of the venerable sport.
While browsing through the Egerton Collection of the British Museum
some time ago, Dr. Elena Lourie, a medieval Hispanist, discovered a docu-
ment — actually, just a sheet of paper — which was used to bind the last will
and testament of one Don Vasco Ramirez de Ribera, bishop of Coria and
grand inquisitor for the provinces of Aragon and Castille. On the paper is
scrawled 54 lines of an incomplete poem, author unknown, about a mythical
bullfight involving Jews as both spectators and participants. The tone of the
poem, which Dr. Lourie estimates very tentatively was written sometime
between 1485 and 1489, is mildly anti-Semitic, but hardly blistering.
"It's a burlesque, actually," says Dr. Lourie, an Oxford University
graduate and current chairman of BGU's history department. "Such satires
were common in 15th Cen-
tury Spain and some of
them were vicious diat-
ribes. What makes this
one unique is that the pro-
tagonists are fighting a
bull, or at least trying to."
Unfortunately, the first
part of the poem has been
lost. As it stands, it begins
with an unnamed Jew
timorously asking:
Should the bull come
What should I do?
May it please God that he
does not come
With my little Jaco (a
Spanish-Jewish name)
Ho ho ho ho!
Fuesenos el toro
Oue le farre yo?
Plega al dio
que no me tope
con mi filio Jaco
Ho ho ho ho!
The rest are fairly
confident of their courage,'
especially the "Jewish
lads, valiant as they are,"
(Continued on Page 12)
,
Klutznick
Pleads for
Jewish Unity
Devoid of
Partisanship
(See Story, Page 11)
S., Romania Criticized in Trifa Case
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The governments of both the United States and Romania have been criticized for
failure to follow the proper judicial procedures bearing on the prosecution of Valarian Trifa, Archbishop of the
Romanian Orthodox Church in America. Tlie former leader of the Romanian Fascist Iron Guard's youth division,
accused of responsibility for the massacre of Jews in Bucharest in 1941, faces hearings in the Federal District
Court in Detroit, beginning July 30, over the truth of the statements he made when he applied for U.S.
citizenship more than two decades ago.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged last week that the Romanian government is not cooperat-
ing in supplying witnesses and is not permitting American officials access to its archives to unearth
evidence against Trifa.
Romania's Chief Rabbi, Moses Rosen, expressed apprehension, on a visit to Washington last week, that U.S.
officials are disposed to put the blame in the "wrong place" in the event that the U.S. prosecution, 22 years after
Trifa's naturalization, should fail to prove its case in Detroit.
Rosen said he presented - evidence against Trifa 17 years ago. He also supplied statements to Radio Free
Europe last week for broadcast to Romania and left a deposition at the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith expressed concern in a letter to Romanian President
Nicolae Ceausescu over reports that his government would provide only slight assistance to the U.S. Justice
Department.
The U.S. proceedings against Trifa are in two stages. The Detroit case is an attempt to revoke his
citizenship on grounds that his entry into the U.S. from Italy in 1950 was illegal because his claim at that
(Continued on Page 5)
(Continued on Page 6)
Birmingham Temple, Rabbi
Are Rebuked kir Providing
Platform for PLO Defender
A resolution adopted last -week by the Rabbinical Commis-
sion of the Jewish Community Council contains a rebuke to the
Birmingham Temple and its rabbi.
Viewing the recent address at the Birmingham Temple as
injurious to Israel and as an affront to Jewish dignity the resolu-
tion, conveyed to Rabbi Sherwin Wine in a letter signed by Rabbi
Israel Halpern, president of the Rabbinical Commission of the
Council, calls for an apology from those who gave a platform to
journalist I.F. Stone.
The letter, dated June 14, addressed to Rabbi Wine under
Rabbi Halpern's signature, follows:
"The Rabbinical Commission of Metropolitan Detroit,
while respecting the right of organizations and individuals
to espouse any viewpoint, also reaffirms the responsibility
of the rabbinate and the institutions which they represent
to preserve the dignity of the Jewish people and to protect
the welfare of the state of Israel.
"The lecture by I. F. Stone at Birmingham Temple on June 4
was an affront to Jewish dignity and injurious to the welfare of
the people of Israel.
"When voices of hatred and defamation come from our own
midst we ought not remain silent, for to do so is to become the
victim of calumny. This is what leads us to protest this shameful
event, in which a Jewish forum was provided for untruth and
misrepresentation which receivedwide circulation in the Detroit
area.
"For the above reason we hereby censure the Birmingham
(Continued on Page 7)