20 Friday, November 23, 1979
FIRESTONE
. JEWELRY
Wholesale Diamonds & Jewelry
Remounting Jewelry & Watch Repairing
SUITE 318 ADVANCE BLDG
23077 Greenfield at 9 Mole
(313, 557-1860
•
LENNY
LIEBERMAN
Orchestra
559.0844
Quality Music
Disco Dance Instruction
Floor Show
(audience participation)
ALL IN ONE
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Vance Request
on Nablus Mayor
Turned Down
NCCJ Honors for HUC-JIR
JERUSALEM (JTA) —
The Israeli government
indicated Sunday that it
will not accede to Secretary
of State Cyrus Vance's ap-
peal against the deportation
of Mayor Bassam Shaka of
Nablus.
A Cabinet source told the
JTA that he was certain the
Supreme Court would up-
hold the government's ex-
pulsion order after it studies
the evidence against Shaka.
photography vq\e IZFIViet. \ \-
gory P.
pAonp Specializing
398-0394
In
Portraits & Sound Movies
Editor-in-Chief
Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1979, JTA, Inc.)
Dr. David Hyatt, right, president of the National
Conference of Christians and Jews, is shown present-
ing two NCCJ honors to Dr. Alfred Gottschalk,
president of Hebrew Union College, on the occasion of
the recent dedication of HUC's Brookdale Center. The
hand-lettered scroll cited the college for "its bold,
pioneering and courageous ecumenical program."
Dr. Gottschalk also received the NCCJ Brotherhood
Award.
...AND THEY RODE OFF INTO THE SNOWBANK.
herman's presents western
boots that stand up to winter. in
Michigan. Sleekers for men
and women by Andrew Geller.
Waterproof, warm-lined boots
in black, bordeaux, antique brown,
taupe or grey that look great and
stay dry even when you're up to your
spurs in slush.
.
For cowgirls in sizes 5 to 10
for only $36. For cowboys in sizes
7 to 13 for just $38.
Sleekers at Lady Sherman's
and Sherman's. Because bad weather
and leather just don't go together.
S
•
SLEEKER'S
For men and women
by andrew geller
DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM,
SOMERSET MALL, PRICE'S MEN'S WEAR-
DEARBORN, LAKESIDE CENTER,
FAIRLANE CENTER, TWELVE OAKS-NOVI.
4
DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM
MAIL ORDERS: 642-2600
Boris Smolar's
r.
•
THE JLC CONVENTION: Jewish Labor Committee,
holding its biennial convention in New York Nov. 30-Dec.
2, achieved an important breakthrough in the rigid U.S.
immigration regulations. It secured an innovation which
paved the way to the present mass-admission of Soviet
Jewish immigrants to this country.
The innovation, suggested by the Jewish Labor Com-
mittee and accepted by the State Department after th€
shameful SS St. Louis tragedy 40 years ago goes back to the
first months after the Nazis invaded Poland. Some 800
Jewish political, labor and cultural leaders managed to
escape in time to the part of Poland then occupied by the
Soviet Red Army.
The Jewish Labor Committee "innovation" consisted
of urging the Washington administration to issue a collec-
tive "Block Visa" for the entire group. The issuing of such
collective visas, or Block Visas — outside of the regular
immigration quota — was never practiced in the U.S. im-
migration system. Under strong pressure from American
Federation of Labor President William Green, the Jewish
Labor Committee's request was granted.
Some of those admitted to the U.S. on the "block visa"
are today outstanding leaders of the Jewish Labor Commit-
tee. They were very active in this country against Nazism
during the war years, and they played an important role
after the fall of the Nazi regime in organizing aid for the
Jewish survivors of the Nazi camps.
A JEWISH LINK: The Jewish Labor Committee
came into existence in 1934, soon after Hitler came to
power in Germany and intensified his anti-Jewish prop-
aganda in the United States.
It was necessary to organize a central representative
Jewish labor body that could speak to the American labor
masses on the menace of Nazism as brother to brother. The
American Jewish Committee maintained at that time a
labor department that was in touch with all the trade
unions in the country. However, the AJCommittee was
considered by labor an organization of Jewish aristocrats,
and its contacts with the labor movement were of little
value.
The Jewish Labor Committee was formed in 1934 at a
convention of the American Federation of Labor in San
Francisco, with Baruch Charney Vladeck, the popular
Jewish Socialist leader and manager of the Jewish. Daily
Forward, as its national chairman.
Soon the leadership of the JLC was joined by such
prominent labor figures as Sidney Hillman, David
Dubinsky, Jacob Potofsky and other leaders of the large
trade unions with a predominant Jewish membership. The
JLC was thus able to appear as a spokesman for 500,000
organized Jewish members in three of the largest interna-
tional trade unions — the Ladies Garment Workers, the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the United Hat, Cap
and Millinery Workers; for more than 110 local trade
unions; for the Workmen's Circle, which is the largest
Jewish fraternal order with tens of thousands of members;
and for more than 750 other labor groups.
The impact of the JLC was immensely felt. The organ-
ization received full support from both the American Fed-
eration of Labor and from the CIO long before the two
powerful representative labor bodies merged. Adolph Held,
a popular figure in the American Jewish labor movement,
was later elected president. He retained this post until his
death a few years ago.
. Today, the Jewish membership of the three major nee-
dle trade unions is not as large as it was when the JLC was
formed, but the three unions still fully support the JLC.
AN ENVIABLE RECORD: During the 45 years of its
existence, the JLC has established an enviable record. The
JLC activities are especially felt in the fields of fighting
racial and religious bigotry in labor's ranks, of stimulatin
support for Israel's security, and of activating the interest
of the American labor movement in the fate of Soviet
Jewry. •
No better compliment could be paid to the JLC than the
drafting of its top executive, Isaiah Minkoff, to become the
executive vice president of the National Jewish Commu-
nity Relations Advisory Council. Minkoff retired last year
from this high position after holding it since the formation
of the NJCRAC 35 years ago.
•
Canada Cantata Takes Award
TORONTO (JTA) —
"Echoes of Children," the
cantata composed by Ben
Steinberg of Toronto as a
tribute to the 1,500,000
children who were killed in
the Holocaust, has won the
prestigious Gabriel Award
of the Catholic Association
of Broadcasters and Com-
municators in the United
States. The cantata was
commissioned by the
Holocaust remembrance
committee of the Toronto
Jewish Congress.