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16 Friday, August 22, 1980

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Jewish Reagan Booster in L.A. Keeps a Low Profile

ENTERTAINMENT?
Seymour Schwaitz

WASHINGTON (JTA) —
The American Jew who is
probably closest to the Re-
publican Presidential
nominee as a friend and as
an advisor is a silver-haired
Los Angeles financier who
started life in America in
New York's Yiddish theater
and made his fortune in
southern California as a
food retailer.
Theodore Cummings,
whose home is in Beverly
Hills, does not seek out
celebrities. They come to

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him, like former Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger
and Sen. Jacob Javits
(R-NY) did when they ar-
rived at the suite in the De-
troit Plaza Hotel where the
National Coalition for Re-
agan was founded on the
first afternoon of the Repub-
lican Party's convention
last month.
Cummings and Detroit's
Max Fisher are the coali-
tion's honorary chairmen —
which indicates the level of
importance of both in the
Republican Party's cam-
paign this year.
"I prefer a low profile,"
Cummings told the
Jewish Telegraphic
Agency when he was
asked to talk about his
services and contribu-
tions to institutions in
California and Jewish
causes. While he re-
sponded briefly, in quiet
tones, to questions about
himself, much of the in-
formation about him
came from others at the
founding meeting
attended by prominent
Jewish Americans across
the country.
In 1975, as chairman of
the Regional Leadership
Conference for State of Is-
rael Bonds, Cummings
asked Reagan's help. "Re-
agan did two things,"
Cummings said. He told us
to use his name for an Israel
Bond dinner and introduced
an amendment in the

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California legislature that
enabled banks and savings
and loan associations to buy
Israel Bonds. For the
dinner, he urged political
leaders to attend. By his
persanal effort, the non-
Jewish community bought
ten million dollars worth of
Israel Bonds."
The American College of
Cardiology presents the
TheodoreCummings
Humanitarian Award an-
nually for overseas teach-
ing. He is the head of the Los
Angeles Music Center.
Presidents and Governors
have named him to various
commissions.
It is in Cummings' devo-
tion to the defense of Israel
that his close relationship
with Reagan for about a
quarter-of-a-century ap-
pears most pronounced.
"During the Six-Day War,"
Cummings recalled, "I
called Reagan to speak at a
rally in the Hollywood Bowl
in support of Israel. It was a
standing-room-only crowd.
Reagan's speech for Israel
was fantastically brilliant."
"There's something
else," Cummings added.
"When a Jew was refused
membership in the
Lakeside Country Club
(near Los Angeles), Re-
agan resigned from it. He
told the club why in a let-
ter. That letter was pin-
ned on a wall at the club
and members threw
darts at it." -
Cummings attributes

much of his deep interest in
Israel to his wife Suzanne.
About 40 years ago, she had
an uncle who was active in
the Histadrut. To raise
money for it, the Workmen's
Circle solicited garment in-
dustry workers to give a dol-
lar at a time. Cummings
had a different idea. With
the help of film actress
Trudi Marshall, Cummings
sponsored a dinner and
raised more than $80,000.
Other Jewish organizations
asked for his cooperation
and he continued his activi-
ties ever since.
A California delegate to
the last four GOP conven-
tions, for Reagan in 1976 as
well as this year, Cum-
mings feels in "this critical
time" Reagan can provide
"a more sensible foreign pol-
icy, a sound economic policy
and the strength and wis-
dom to make decisions. We
need good leadership. Re-
agan can give it to us. I have
all the confidence in the
world in him."
Now a California civic
leader, philanthropist and
an investor, having sold
his retail food chain in 1959,
Cummings came to New
York in 1920 as an Austrian
immigrant with his
widowed mother.
Cummings' father, an
engineer, was "drafted into
the Austrian Army in
World War I as an officer —
an unusual tribute to a Jew
in those years. Captured by
the Russians, he was sent to

Siberia where he died. The
family - later moved to Hol-
land and Hungary before
immigrating to Ainerica.

In New York, Cummings'
first occupation was in the
Yiddish theater, working
with such performers as thu'
Adlers, Lee Strasberg ar
Paul Muni. Eleven years
ter, he moved to Los
Angeles to join an uncle in
the retail food business
which he developed into a
chain of markets in a corpo-
rate empire listed on the
New York. Stock Ex-
change.
Cummings' standing
with Republican leaders
was indicated last Feb-
ruary when the Cedars-
Sinai Medical Center
conducted a silver trib-
ute to his 25 years of
dedication to it. The
guests included Reagan,
Kissinger, former
President Gprald Ford,
former California Gov-
ernor Edmund Brown
and Democratic- U.S.
Senator Alan Cranston.

The center is only one of
Cummings' special inter-
ests. He is a founder of the
Theodore Cummings Col-
lection of Hebraica and
Judaica at the University of
California in Los Angeles
and is the first Jewish trus-
tee of the University of
Southern California where
he fought the conditions
connected with a huge
Saudi Arabian grant.

Jerusalem Law Counters UN

By JOSEPH POLAKOFF

(Copyright 1980, JTA, Inc.)

WASHINGTON — Secre-
tary of State Edmund M_ us-
kie, testifying before the
House Foreign Affairs
Committee on world events
a day after the United Na-
tions General Assembly
adopted by a vote of-112-7 a
resolution demanding that
Israel withdraw from all
territories it has occupied
since June 1967, "including
Jerusalem," described this
resolution as "totally un-
balanced."
Viewed against the back-
ground of events since last
winter, the outcry against
Israel's law that unified
Jerusalem as the capital of
the Jewish state also is, ac-
cording to observers here,
totally one-sided.
Walking a tight rope to
keep Egypt in the Camp
David process, the State
Department has declared
Israel's law is "unhelpful" to
the West Bank-Gaza au-
tonomy talks and that it has
no legal effect on Washing-
ton's position that the ulti-
mate status of Jerusalem
must be negotiated.
The question is why did
the Knesset at this time
put into law what Israel
has practiced since it un-
ified Jerusalem 13 years
ago? The answer seems to
be that Israel is simply
counter-attacking the in-
tesive and continuing
buildup in the United Na-
tions and elsewhere for
Israel to abandon
Jerusalem.

The record shows that Is-
rael's law was introduced in
the Knesset on May 14. Six
weeks earlier, on April 1,
the Egyptian Parliament
had adopted legislation dec-
laring Jerusalem belongs to
the Arabs. in perpetuity.
In the five
ve months before
the Knesset adopted its law
July 29, majorities in the
United Nations approved
eight anti-Israeli resolu-
tions. Egypt joined the
latest and worst of them —
the General Assembly ac-
tion that spells out what
looks like a death warrant
for Israel. It was after all
that that the Knesset

adopted its law.
Incidentally, the Carter
Administration itself has
prejudged the issue in con-
tradiction of its criticism of
Israel. The U.S. voted for
the March 1 UN Security
Council resolution bitterly
opposed by Israel, particu-
larly its Jerusalem aspects.
Although President Car-
ter later disavowed the vote, -
his Administration publicly
maintained that most of
that resolution was in keep-
ing with U.S. official posi-
tions and never placed the
President's statement of re-
puaiation on the record in
the UN.

A PRAYER

By ZEEV URPAZ

(Editor's note: Zeev Urpaz was 24 when he was
killed during the Yom Kippur War. His poem ap-
peared in Hebrew in Maariv, and was translated into
English by Louis Panush of Southfield.)

Oh God—
We wanted for you to come down at times
To feel the strangeness, the coldness in the heart
(When) the sharp edge of metal threatens to strike,
The mighty explosion is about to burst forth.

We wanted that you'd see Mother
Choking (her) tears in her throat;
And the little child, who only asked "why?"
But the whole world is silent without an answer.
We loathe all of these, Oh God!

We have no strength to contain this anymore.
All of us know that You are powerful from above
But we never knew that You are powerful to look (down).

Oh, God—
Make it end .!

_/

