THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Pseudo 'Arab' Educates Young_ UJA Leadership

Friday, January 25, 1980 45

Jerry Flanzbaum and
local members of the United
Jewish Appeal's Young
Leadership Cabinet pulled
a fast one on 250 persons re-
cently — to teach them an

important lesson in Middle Middle East politics at Adat
East politics.
Shalom Synagogue Jan. 12.
The audience had turned
After his talk and re-
out to hear Ibn Abu el sponse to questions, during
Fashid present the Palesti- which the originally polite
nian Arab viewpoint on audience became increas-
ingly hostile, Fashid re-
vealed himself to be
Flanzbaum, a New Jersey
attorney and a leader in the
Young Leadership Cabinet.
In fluent, Arab-accented
English, "Fashid" fervently
detailed Zionist "crimes"
against the Palestinian
Belva Plain, author of Evergreen
Arabs.
He described how his vil-
lage, "Abu Jammel" (a
Spanning five centuries, The Books of Rachel
name
he later admitted he
is a dramatic. richly detailed saga of an
made up), was destroyed by
indomitable Jewish family. It is a family unified
"Zionist soldiers" in 1948.
by business, by blood, and by a name—
The women and children
Rachel, the name given to each generation's
were evacuated, and one
first born daughter. Each Rachel is truly
woman who stopped to give
heroic, growing on the legends of the Rachels
birth was shot, he said; the
who preceded her. Everyone who reads this
men, including his father,
towering novel of family, of passion, of faith will
were kept in the village and
be spellbound by its power and touched by
murdered.
its theme. A main selection of The Jewish
The United Nations deci-
Book Club. A main selection of The
sion to partition Palestine,
Literary Guild
he said, was "to take from
the Arab and give to the Jew
THE BOOKS OF RACHEL by Joel Gross
the land of the Arab." The
$11.95
Arabs consider that action
to be "a crime of interna-
tional proportions," he said.
He repeated the charges
that Israel systematically
tortured Arab prisoners.
"Until there is a demo-
cratic secular state in Pales-
tine there can be no lasting
peace," he concluded.
The audience had been
polite during "Fashid's"
talk, but became restive
during the question-and-
answer period. When
"Fashid" strode to the Israel
flag on the stage and stated
that the two blue stripes re-
present the Nile and the
Euphrates and the "Zionist
dream" is to control all the
land between the two rivers,
the audience responded
with boos and hisses.
The heckling intensified
when "Fashid" attempted to
Seaview Books
justify the PLO's use of ter-
Distributed by Harper & Row
ror. "We have only the

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The United Jewish Appeal's Jerry Flanzbaum,
left, alias Ibn Abu el Fashid, is shown with program
chairman Irwin Alterman at the UJA local Young
Leadership Cabinet session Jan. 12. •

weapons of the guerilla," he
said. "The Zionists have at
their disposal airplanes,
cluster bombs, napalm." He
charged the Israelis reg-
ularly drop booby-trapped
dolls into Arab refugee
camps; children who pick
them up have their arms
blown off.
As the audience became
angrier, program chairman
Irwin Alterman intervened.
He announced that a UJA
spokesman happened to be
in town and wanted to re-
spond to the speaker's re-
marks.
"Fashid" became angry,
saying he was supposed to
be the only speaker, and
stalked from the stage. Al-
terman then introduced
Flanzbaum, a vice president
of the Jewish Federation of
Central New Jersey. Within
a few moments, the audi-
ence realized he was
"Fashid," minus the suit
jacket and dark glasses, and
broke into cheers.
The cheers intensified
when he opened the front of
his red-striped "Arab" shirt
to reveal a T-shirt proclaim-
ing "I Am a Zionist."
You haven't been
cheated, " he said, dropping
his convincing "Arab" ac-
cent. "You didn't hear a
Palestinian, but you heard

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the Palestinian viewpoint.
"Everything I've told you
has been said to public
audiences by Palestinian
spokesmen — including the
nonsense about the Israel
flag and the lies about the
murder of the woman in
childbirth and Israel's use of
napalm and booby-trapped
dolls.
"There was no 'Abu
Jammel' but the other de-
tails of my speech are being
repeated all over the coun-
try to audiences that don't
know how to respond as well
as you do."
To help audience mem-
bers combat Arab prop-
aganda, Flanzbaum passed
out fact sheets called
"Fighting Fashid," which
listed the points he made in
his "Palestinian" speech
side-by-side with factual re-
sponses.
Working with Alterman
in planning the program
were Co-Chairmen Thomas
Kukes and Peter Alter. Dr.
Richard Krugel is - area
chairman, and Joel Ger-
shenson, regional chair-
man, of the Young Leader-
ship Cabinet. Other local
Cabinet members are Bruce
Foote, Dr. Martin Hart and
Dr. Mark Hauser.
Stanley Frankel is na-
tional chairman of the
Young Leadership Cabinet
and Lawrence Jackier is
chairman-designate:

Aliya Consultant
Due in Detroit

Avraham Frank, director
of professional programs for
Israel Aliya Center in the
U.S. and Canada, will be in
Detroit 7:30 p.m. Tuesday
at the 10 Mile Jewish Com-
munity Center, Room 4.
Sponsored by Chug Is-
rael, Frank will discuss
pilot trips, job oppor-
tunities, owning a business
in Israel and more. For in-
formation, call the Israel
Aliya Center, 661-1084.

Jwv

LT. ROY F. GREEN
AUXILIARY will service
the D.J. Healy Children's
Shelter 1 p.m. Saturday.
Persons wishing to volun-
teer should call Mamie Sim-
rod, chairman, 557-0923.
Entertainment, refresh-
ments and gifts will be pro-
vided. Shirlee Snider is
president.

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