12 Friday, August 29, 1980

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Israel's Request for U.S. Aid in 1982 Seeks to Cover Budget Gaps

By JOSEPH POLAKOFF

WASHINGTON (JTA) —
Burdened by a continuing
defense program that eats
up two-fifths of its budget
and the enormously in-
creased costs of energy, the
government of Israel has

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formally presented to the
United States a request for
_economic and military aid
totaling $2.9 billion for the
U.S. fiscal year of 1982 be-
ginning Oct. 1, 1981.
This request is for $700
million more than the
appropriation being legis-
lated for the year beginning
this Oct. 1. The long lead
time for presentation of re-
quests is required to enable
the U.S. legislative proc-
esses to consider all aid re-
quests in detail.
The Israeli request was
presented Aug. 20 by Israeli
Ambassador Ephraim
Evron to Deputy Secretary
of State _Warren Christ-
opher at the State Depart-
ment. Evron was accom-

panied by Dan Halperin,
the Israel embassy's minis-
ter for economic affairs. The
State Department, -which
guides the U.S. Agency for
International Development
(AID), initiates U.S. assis-
tance abroad.
It is considered im-
probable that the Israeli
request for the fiscal year
1982 will be fully consid-
ered by the U.S. govern-
ment until after the
Presidential inaugura-
tion and the convening of
the new Congress next
January. The program
for the fiscal year begin-
ning in October' is itself
far from complete in both
houses of Congress.
The $2.9 billion request,

Israeli sources noted, is
"realistic" in that it repre-
sents the difference be-
tween the expected outflow
for Israel's expenditures in
the fiscal year 1982 and its
income. Israel's citizens are
the highest taxed in the
world and the defense
budget of the Middle East's
lone democracy is also the
highest.
Although Israel and
Egypt have a peace treaty,
Israel- still faces potential
warfare on three fronts.
Aid to Israel was $1.8 bil-
lion in fiscal year 1980, the
current year. The Congress
now is considering slightly '•
less than $2.2 billion for the
fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
This includes $1.4 billion in

AND I DID PRAY

By MAURICE CROLL, M.D.

In all my roamings 'round the world
I stopped to pray with my kindred souls
In towns and countries far away
In countries strange with different tongues
Of different customs, different ways
In foreign words I did not know
And yet
When we picked up our books to pray
We met in common bond, true brotherhood
Our prayers were quite the same
No matter where my restless feet did go.

In the city of kings, Lima, Peru
In the Argentines, in Buenos Aires
In the North Country, in Corrientes and Resistencia
In edifices, majestic and grand
In makeshift shuls so orthodox.

In beautiful Rio and Sao Paulo
In the_vast land of Brazil
In Ascuncion of Paraguay
The land of lace and legend
In La Paz of Bolivia
Almost three miles high
Among the mills I found
in the backroom, three flights up
A little makeshift shul
And I did pray.

In London twon so bright and gay
I found my kin and stopped to pray
In Athens and in Istanbul
But in Rhodes of ancient Greece
I walked into the holocaust
Face to face.

In streets so narrow in ghetto land
•
I found this shining jewel
A long lost lonesome little shul
That shone so bright
In this land of history.

My guide spoke up in tones so soft
No one does worship here"
The synagogue was closed. There is a plaque
I read the names, in bronze it said
Chiam, Berrel, David, Yitzchak, Moshe
Abraham, Meyer, Samuel .. .

The guide spoke up
The Nazis, Hitler's hordes, they killed them all
Their women and children, too, whole families
He hung his head in whisphers low
They took my father too.

A bolt struck me between the eyes
I looked so ashen gray
'Tis true, he said, 'Tis true
"No one does worship here."

The shul was locked with rusted chain
I pleaded with them
Please open it for me
I walked in silence into this tomb
So clean, so neat, so immaculate
With Persian rugs throughout.
The prayer books so neatly placed
The prayer shawls so neatly stacked
All arranged in their proper place
I scarce believed my eyes.

I walked up to the Beema's stand
I opened up the Book
I looked upward to my God
Why?

•

I never saw a face of these '
I never spoke their word
I never had a chance to pray
With these that Hitler took.

A Yiskadal so loud I said
It made the rafter ring
No words of death doth it contain
In all it's wondrous words.

'Tis well known among our race
The Yiskadel we say for
Those we honor of the dead.

But now so suddenly it came to me
It brightened my soul
The Yiskadel begins.the heal
Upon the shattered soul
One Yiskadal for eighteen lives
It surely is not enough.

My prayer was ended I looked about
The silence was supreme
As in a trance I walked about
From stall to empty stall
In each I sat as if to talk
To honor them — a Yiskadal for each.

My voice by now was hollow bound
I scarce could say a word
The tears did flow upon my face
Until my body shook
And then I wept — giant gushing tears
For my brothers I did not know.

I sat alone for such a time
My sobs now shook the walls
These same walls where these men had prayed
I felt their prayers still

A hand upon my shoulders soft
I looked up with empty face
Come, my dear, she said to me
There is grief here beyond us all
Come dear let us go now.

The shul was locked, I said goodbye
To these my eighteen friends
I prayed for them in my own way
The only way I knew.

I gave them all a part of me
And then I went my way
In my heart I carried them
These men I did not know
But in my heart I prayed with them.
And my heart was all aglow

At last in Israel I stood
Beside the Wailing Wall
Here I poured out all my grief
For those men of that little shul
That I carried with me to the wall
And prayed with them in full.

military aid and $785 mil-
lion in economic supporting
assistance — the highest
total for any country.
For Egypt, economic
aid is set at $750 million
and military aid at $550
million. Economic assis-
tance for Egypt, how-
ever, is enhanced to
about $1 billion when the
Food for Peace Program,
administered by the U.S.
Department of Agricul-
ture, is included.
While this legislation is
incomplete, these totals,
having both the usual bi-
partisan support in Con-
gress and backed by the
Carter Administration, are
e xpected to prevail. The
authorization measure,
which sets the foreign aid
policy, is in a Senate House
conference.
The appropriation bill,
which funds the suggested
totals in the authorization
legislation, has been ap-
proved by the House Appro-
priations Committee but its
Senate counterpart has not
yet taken it up. Matters
other than funds for Egypt
and Israel are slowing the
legislative process.
ISraeli sources note that
40 percent of Israel's budget
is for defense. Its oil costs in
1978 — the year before the
Alma oil fields were yielded

to Egypt — was $700 mil-
lion. For fiscal year 1981,
the cost is put at more than -
$2.5 billion and even higher
for 1982 in view of the ex-
pected increases in petro-
leum prices.
In 1979, the Alma oil
fields supplied Israel
with 22 percent of its
petroleum needs. Had Is
rael kept the fields, its
development of them
would have made Israel
self-sufficient in petro-
leum by 1983.
In preparing their
budget, Israelis face a
three-fold burden. Primary
is.defense. The cost to israel
of evacuating Sinai and es-
tablishing a new military
infrastructure in south Is-
rael as a result of the treaty
with Egypt is about $5 bil-
lion over a three-year
period. The U.S. has con-
tributed a grant of$800 mil-
lion for these purposes and a
loan of $2.4 billion at a rela-
tively high interest rate,
leaving a gap of about $2
billion for Israel to meet.
A second burden is the
loss of the Sinai oil fields
and the increasing outlays
for imported oil at world
market prices.
The third burden is the
absence of oil imports from
Iran which was a principal
supplier before the Shah's
departure from Teheran.

St. Louis Jewish Centers
Sponsor Senior Olympics

By BEN GALLOB

said "this is a kind of com-
eback for me," explaining
Missouri's first "Senior he had run with Jesse
Olympics" was held for Owens on the Ohio State
three days last May under University 100-meter relay
sponsorship of the St. Louis team in 1933-1934. While
Jewish Community Centers Thomas raced to first place
Association (JCCA) and the in a lot of Ohio State con-
St. Louis Globe-Democrat tests, he said "that was be-
in cooperation with the fore Jesse came. I never
Central Hardware Co. Dur- could beat Jesse."
- ing those three days, more
In addition to 5,000-
than 400 men and women in meter and 10,000-meter
three age groups — 55-59, races, 100-yard and 500-
60-64 and over 64 — com- yard free-style swim con-
peted in 40 events.
tests, squash and tennis
The St. Louis Olympics contests and five and ten
for the Elderly commemo- mile bicycle races, the
rated the JCCA's 100 years Senior Olympics had such
of commitment to physical diverse contests as a one-
fitness and family rec- mile walk, shuffleboard,
reational programs, accord- horseshoe pitching and
ing to a report in the "JWB rope-skipping.
Circle," the publication of
the National Jewish Wel- Jewish Farming
fare Board. The Circle said
the report was based on ar- Settlement Cited
ticles about the Senior
TORONTO (JTA) —
Olympics in the Globe- Some 100 descendants and
Democrat. Held at the St. friends of Jews who lived in
Louis JCCA, the event hon- the Saskatchewan agricul-
ored the memory of the late tural settlement of Hirsch,
Mac Brown, a long-time gathered there recently to
JCCA member and backer unveil a monument to the
of amateur athletics.
once thriving farm commu-
For one of the contes- nity.
tants, 62-year-old Helen
The settlement, which
Stephens, the event recalled was founded in 1892 and ,
her participation in the deserted soon after World
1936 Olympics in Berlin, War II, was named after
where she won gold medals philanthropist Baron
in track and field. For Ben Maurice de Hirsch.
Thomas, the Senior Olym-
¶f those who are the
pics marked the first time
he had run competitively enemies of innocent
amu: ements had the direc-
since his college days.
Thomas won the 50-yard tion of the world, they would
and 100-yard dashes and take away the spring and
the long jump in the men's youth, the former from the
over-65 division. He raced year, the latter from human
50 yards, in seven seconds life.
and 100 yards in 13.87. He

(Copyright 1980, JTA, Inc.)