Iranian Jew Executed, Jewish Activist Murdered in W. Germany
PARIS (JTA) — An Iranian Jewish journalist, Simon Farzami, was executed Dec. 16
by a firing squad in Teheran. The news was first reported last Thursday by the French
news agency, Agence France Presse (AFP) for whom the veteran journalist worked for
several years. However, sources in Paris confirmed only last Friday that Farzami was
Jewish -and had at one time beeh an active member of the Teheran Jewish community.
At the same time, the murder of a prominent Jewish leader in Erlangen,
Bavaria on Friday shocked West Germany's Jewish community because of its
apparent racial and political motivation. The victim, Shlomo Levin, 69, chairman
The Season for
Genuine Greetings
of Good Will and
Neighborliness
Russian Legacy
From the Czars
Commentary, Page 2
of the Association for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, was shot to death along
with a friend, Frida Poeschke, 57, in the latter's home. Poeschke, who is not
Jewish, was the widow of a Social Democratic anti-Nazi activist.
West German police have assigned a 20-member homicide squad to investigate the
crime and have offered a $20,000 Mark ($10,000) reward for information leading to an
arrest and conviction. Immediately after the shooting, the police said the assailants •
would be found among enemies of Israel and the Jews but they did not repeat that
(Continued on Page 6)
HE JEWISH NEWS
A WeekiN Review
of Jeluish Events
Permissiveness
Leading to the
Hatreds in the UN
Israel's Problem
Is the Need for
a Majority
Editorials, Page 4
Copyright © The Jewish News Publishing Co.
VOL. LXXVIII, No. 17 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075
424-8833
$1 - 5 Per Year: This_ Issue 35c
December 26, 1980,
egino :$adat Renew : promise
to Contintie. - Purtult-Of Peace
Peres Defeats Rabin,
Plan Shadow Cabinet
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel Labor
Party chairman Shimon Peres says he
will be ready to announce his "shadow
cabinet" within a month, if elections to
the Knesset are advanced to earlier
next year than the statutory Novem-
ber date.
Party leaders spent the weekend
pondering the new balance of power
within the Labor movement, following
PERES
Peres' over 70 percent win in the party
convention last Thursday. Peres told newsmen-that inclu-
sion of former Premier Yitzhak Rabin in any future gov-
ernment he may be called on to form depends on Rabin
himself. But observers feel that many of Rabin's suppor-
ters, who won less than 29 percent of the convention vote,
may desert him in the- hope of winning favor with the
majority. This would reduce Rabin's ministerial chances.
No complete shadow cabinet can be drawn up in
Israel in advance of general elections, owing to the
coalition form of government. The composition of the
Cabinet depends on the relative weight within the
_120-member Knesset of the various parties who must
be persuaded to join the governing coalition.
All parties demand ministerial representation at least in
proportion to their Knesset membership,and smaller par-
ties whose support, however, tiny, may make or break the
government, have in the past frequently demanded a
(Continued on Page 5)
By GIL SEDAN
JERUSALEM (JTA) = U.S. special Ambassador Sol Linowitz ended his final Middle East mission for
President Carter last week on an optimistic note. He said the West Bank-Gaza autonomy talks could be
concluded successfully "in a fairly short order," because there are no insoluble problems. He also read a
joint statement by Premier Menahem Begin and President Anwar Sadat in which they pledged to negotiate
"in good faith in order to conclude the negotiations at the earliest possible date."
Linowitz spent two days in Israel during which he had a lengthy discussion with Begin to review the 13
months of autonomy talks between Israel, Egypt and the U.S. He held similar discussions with Sadat in
Cairo befome coming to Israel. At his farewell press conference he did not entirely exclude the possibility
that he might continue the mission under the Reagan Administration.
Telling reporters that he would meet with Reagan as soon as he returns to the U.S., Linowitz
said, "I will make it clear to the President-elect that this job must be undertaken by a person who
is very close to the President and enjoys his full confidence." He said that part of what he
achieved as the American representative in the autonomy talks was due to the fact that the local
parties knew he had the confidence of the President.
In their joint statement, Begin and Sadat ex-
pressed the "firm conviction that the Camp David
process is the only viable path toward comprehensive
peace in the Middle East today." Linowitz shared that
view and observed, If there is a determination of
both countries to conclude the talks successfully — as
I sense to be the case today — this can be done in
fairly short order."
He said that in recent months, the negotiators -
cleared away the "subsidiary issues" leaving the
toughest questions open, but there are no insoluble
problems. He declined to specify what modifications
Were made in the positions of the negotiating parties
but stressed that important progress was made.
He said that Israel, for example, changed its stance
on several autonomy issues such as water resources,
ANWAR SADAT
MENAHEM BEGIN
(Continued on Page 6)
Archeologists Find Byzantine
Church at Lower Herodion
Concentration Camp Liberators
Will Be Honored in Washington
JERUSALEM — A Hebrew University archeological team, digging at Lower Herod-
has unearthed a Byzantine church built of reused Herodian stones.
This is the third Byzantine church found at the site, a fact of great historical interest
because Herodion had not been known previously from Byzantine sources.
The archeologists have not yet discovered King Herod's burial place, but the possibil-
remains that it is nearby. Herodion, south of Jerusalem, was the site of one of King
rod's fortress palaces.
The usual July and August season this year was renewed in November after
an intermission, and has just been concluded. The main thrust was to uncover the
environs of an unusual monumental structure which had been exposed in its
entirety in 1978 to the south of the large pool in the center of Lower Herodion. The
purpose was to examine the possibility that the monumental building was part of
-
Herod's burial complex.
North of the monumental structure a staircase was uncovered which connected it
with the large ornamental garden surrounding the pool. A large Herodian room, most of
it hewn into the bedrock, and a series of Byzantine rooms, were exposed to the south.
The dig was extended southeastward in November in the wake of the discovery of a
heap of superbly dressed Herodian stones, some of them ornamented. To the surprise of
the archeologists, they did not find here the Herodian-structure from which the stones
had fallen. Instead, they found remains of a Byzantine church built of the "recycled"
Herodian stones. Half of the basilica-style church has been exposed thus far. A baptismal
hall with a splendid baptismal pool has been exposed in its entirety to the south of the
apse. Only fragments remained of a colorful, geometric mosaic floor.
WASHINGTON — Prof. Elie Wiesel, chairman of the United States Holocaust
Council, has announced that the council will sponsor the first International Conference
of Liberators of Concentration Camps in the fall of 1981 in Washington. The conference
will honor the allied forces who liberated Nazi concentration camps.
The United States Army Center of Military History will provide liaison between the
Department of Defense and the council. Every effort will be
made to locate medical corps perknnel, military corre-
spondents and photographers, and every commanding offi-
cer of each army participating in the liberation, as well as •
the chief of staff, the battalion commander, and the officer
of the detachment that first entered each camp.
Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, New
Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom, the USSR, and
Yugoslavia have been invited by the council to send a
formal delegation made up of individuals who par-
ticipated in camp liberations. Initial contact with
these countries was made through the Department of
State.
Miles Lerman, chairman of the council's Committee on
International Relations, has met with representatives of
American veterans organizations to seek their help in
locating American liberators.
ELIE WIESEL