Egypt Nominates Its Ambassador to Israel

CAIRO — Egypt has nominated its Foreign Ministry press director, Saad Mortada, a career diplomat, to be its first
ambassador to Israel. Israel has already nominated Eliahu Ben-Elissar, director of the Prime Minister's Office, to be its
ambassador to Cairo. Under the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, the two countries will exchange ambassadors Feb. 26.
Mortada, 57, is a career diplomat who has worked in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry since 1947. He has a law degree
from Caiio University. His appointment surprised many Egyptian diplomatic observers who believed a military man
would be appointed to head Egypt's embassy in Israel because the continuing peace talks between the two countries will
center on Israel's final withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and Israel's security needs on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Unlike Ben-Elissar, Mortada has not played a major role in the two years of peace negotiations and
ks that have been conducted by Israel and Egypt.
Palestinian autonomy ial

SAAD MORTADA

Mortada has served in several Middle Eastern capitals, including Senegal and Morocco. He had served as Egyptian
ambassador to Morocco for one year when the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was signed last March. In April, Morocco
joined 16 other Arab nations in severing diplomatic relations with Egypt.

A Journalistic
Experience
Which Suggests
Editorial
Demand for Truth

THE JEWISH NEWS

Commentary, Page 2

VOL. LXXVI, No. 19

of Jewish Events

A Weekly Review

ELIAHU BEN-ELISSAR

Ransoming
the Captives:
How Jewish
Tradition
Judges Blackmail
and Kidnapping

Editorial, Page 4

17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $15.00 Per Year: This Issue 35c

Jan. 11, 1980

11 PLO Spokesmen Reaffirm
Goal of Destruction of Israel

Regular Attendance
at Synagogues Down

NEW- YORK — Forty percent of the adult population of

the United States regularly attended churches or

synagogues in 1979, continuing a pattern of attendance
that has held steady since the beginning of the decade,
according to the Gallup Poll.
Protestant and Catholic attendance remained at the
level it was last year, according to the poll, but synagogue
attendance among Jews, who the Gallup Poll said comprise
two percent of the total population, declined from 27 per-
cent in 1978 to 20 percent.
On average, 40 percent of the nation's Protestants and
52 percent of the Roman Catholics went to church weekly,
and 20 percent of the Jews attended synagogue that fre-
quently, according to surveys of more than 12,000 adults
around the country taken in eight weeks during the year.
Those weeks did not include such religious holi-

days as Christmas, Easter or Yom Kippur, when
attendance is high. The survey aimed at learning how
many adults go to church or synagogue every week,
not those who go two or three times a month or for
special holidays, according to George H. Gallup Jr.,
head of the poll.

"The more evangelical churches have been gaining
members and attendance has been going up dramatically
in the 70s," a Gallup spokesman said. "This has tended to
counterbalance the decline in the mainline churches."

Eleven prominent Palestinian political and intellectual leaders have unanimously
LONDON (JTA)
rejected making changes in the Palestinian National Charter so that it no longer calls for the extinction of
Israel. The proposal was put to them by the Arab-owned "Middle East" monthly because of claims that the
PLO could not become a partner in Middle East peace talks until it dropped the extreme passages in its
basic document.
The Palestinians, all of whom have been described as moderates, declared that the charter should not
be changed and that this was not necessary for a continuation of the PLO's pursuit of international
recognition. They include Prof. Edward Said, Columbia University; Dr. Fayez Sayich, consultant to the
Kuwaiti delegation at the UN; Prof. Hisham Sharabi, Georgetown University; Sidky Dajani, PLO execu-
tive committee member; Mahmoud Labadi, PLO spokesman; Zuhdi Terzi, PLO representative at the UN;
Sabri Jiryis, director of the PLO research center; and Khaled Fahoum, chairman of the Palestine National
Council.

—

They gave a unanimous "no" to the following questions: Should the Palestine National
Charter be changed? Should the Palestinians set up a government in exile with a new provisional
constitution for Palestine? Would changing the charter lead to a U.S.-PLO dialogue or force
Israel to recognize the PLO?

Prof. Said, once thought of as a possible Palestinian participant in Middle East talks, said, "In the
present context, pressure to change the charter is an assault upon Palestinian rights." Fayez Sayigh also
opposed changing the charter but added that should circumstances warrant it, "consideration might be
given to the adoption of a new political program."
An even harsher statement was issued over Radio Teheran on Jan. 1 by the PLO representative in
Iran, Hani el Chasan: "In five years we shall proclaim a Palestinian government and in 15 years we hope to
destroy Israel." Chasan, said his organization derives "our main support from the Iranian revolution and
(the Ayatollah) Khomeini." He added:
"We are devotees of the Imam of the Shiites and are not prepared to hold talks with the cruel ones. We
are ready to sacrifice ourselves and shall not forego our land. It is our hope that the leaders of Iran and
Palestine will enter Jerusalem arm in arm."
(Continued on Page 5)

French Aviator Gruenblat Boosted Tel Aviv Port Before Its Time

By MAXA NORDAU

(Editor's note: Claude Gruenblat was among the leading architects of Israel's notable cities and ports.
He was an associate of the first mayors of Tel Aviv and was the progenitor of the idea for a Tel Aviv Port. He
earned a place among Israel's pioneers. He was married to Masa Nordau, the daughter of the world famous
philosopher, physician and author, who was the keynote speaker at the earliest World Zionist Congresses and
the leading supporter of Theodore Herzl in the founding of the World Zionist Organization and the World
Zionist Congress. Maxa Nordau, who resides in Paris with her daughter Claudia Gruenblat, is the author of
this article about her husband.)

In 1936, 12 years before the birth of the Mate of Israel, the land was still called Palestine
and it was torn by riots, bombings, shootings. The British Mandatory Power did very little to
stop all that violence; in fact, practically only the Jews who defended themselves were hit by
the authorities.
The port of Haifa was difficult to reach; the port of Jaffa was closed to Jews. So Claude
Gruenblat, in agreement with _the great Dizengoff, the founder (in spite of his name being
omitted by some people) of Tel Aviv and mayor of that city, had the idea of building a harbor in
Tel Aviv, in the mouth of the river Yarkon. It was not an easy task under prevailing circum-
stances, but, in cooperation with Solel Boneh and Misrad Kablani, it was accomplished
although it was never entirely completed.
For some unknown reason, that matter was dropped and the port, which could have been of
great help to Tel Aviv and to the whole country, was reduced to a small creek and, as far as I
know, it is hardly used anymore.

MAXA NORDAU

Who was Claude Gruenblat? He was born in a small city in what was then Russia
(Continued on Page 6)

Maxa Nordau, in 1965, did ,his painting of herself,
French aviator Guyneurer, center, and her husband
Claude Gruenblat when they were together in the
1930s.