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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

48 Friday, January 2, 1981

Israel Bonds Reached $5 Billion Level on Its 30th Anniversary

By SAM ROTHBERG

(President, General Chairman
Israel Bond Organization)
NEW YORK — During

Prime Minister Begin's No-
vember visit to the United
States, we celebrated the
30th anniversary of the
founding of the Israel Bond
program.
At a New York dinner
honoring veteran Jewish
leader Jack Weiler where
Begin presented him with
the 1980 Golda Meir Award,
the Bond drive officially ex-
ceeded the $5 billion mark
in cash receipts since its in-
ception.
The occasion produced
$57.5 million, the largest
amount of money ever
raised by a Jewish organ-
ization anywhere in the
world at a single function. It
compares with the $52 mil-
lion in Israel Bonds sold in
all of 1951, the first year of
Israel Bonds.
I recall the beginning of
Bonds on a day 30 years
ago, Sept. 3, 1950 when a
group of 50 American
leaders met with the
leaders of Israel in the
small dining room of the
King David Hotel. They
had come to Israel at the
urgent invitation of

Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion.
The group consisted of
representatives of the
Council of Jewish Federa-
tions and Welfare Funds,
community fund-raising
chairmen, the Jewish
Agency, the United Jewish
Appeal, the United Pales-
tine Appeal, the Joint Dis-
tribution Committee,
Hadassa.h, Keren Hayesod,
the Zionist Organization of
America, Labor Zionists
and Mizrachi.
This meeting took place
less than 21/2 years after the
proclamation of the state.
Israel was in a state of fi-
nancial exhaustion. Its
meager resources were
drained by the War of Lib-
eration. Its treasury was
empty and its economy was
on the verge of collapse. It
had great difficulty coping
with a wave of immigrants
that started to flood the
country immediately after
the proclamation of inde-
pendence.
In May 1948, there were
650,000 Jews in Israel. By
September 1950 the
number was almost double.
There was a shortage of food
for the newcomers, no hous-
ing and no jobs. Tent cities

`Self-Portrait of a Hero'

had to be set up. And when
we met in Jerusalem there
were already more than
100,000 men, women and
children living in these tent
cities.
It was a bitter, desper-
ate hour and it called for
immediate and dramatic
action. Hew could Israel
create a new instrument
to produce a substantial
'increase in financial aid
from Diaspora Jewry?
The UJA had peaked in
1948, the year of statehood.
In 1946 the year after the
horrifying extent of the
Holocaust became public.
knowledge, a great break-
through occurred in the
UJA. It raised $103 million,
as against $35 million in
1945, which was the highest
amount raised up to that
time.
In 1947 the UJA raised
$117 million and in 1948,
under the impact of the War
of Liberation, it reached its
highest point $148 million.
But in 1949, with the Arab-
Israeli war over, the cam-
paign started to slide and
the decline accelerated in
the early months of 1950.
Those familiar with the
fund-raising scene in the
United States were aware of
the fact that it was UJA's
top leadership who took the
initiative in setting the
stage for what later became
the Israel Bond program.
They more than anybody
else were deeply concerned
about the desperate need for
new sources of financial aid.

Henry Montor, the
executive vice chairman
of UJA, was the prime
mover in looking for new
ways of funding, working
very closely with Golda
Meir and Finance Minis-
ter Eliezer Kaplan. Dur-
ing 1949 and the early
part of 1950, Mrs. Meir
and Kaplan crossed the
Atlantic on a number of
occasions to meet with
American financial ex-
perts and key Jewish
business and communal
leaders to get their advice
on a proposed long-term
public loan.
The Israel leaders found
no encouragement in the
American financial com-
munity which questioned
the wisdom of floating any
public loan.
It was then that Prime
Minister Ben-Gurion in-
vited the Jewish leaders to
meet in Jerusalem.
The deliberations con-
cluded with a proposal
encompassing a four-point
program involving the rais-
ing of a total sum of $1.5
billion over a three-year
period for rehabilitation,
settlement and economic
development. One-third of
the amount was to be pro-
vided by the Israelis them-
selves and the remaining $1
billion was to come from the
United States.
Six weeks later, in Oc-
tober 1950, Golda Meir
came to Washington, D.C.
to meet with representa-
tives of major American

SAM ROTHBERG

Jewish organizations
and communities to con-
sider plans for launching
Israel's first Bond issue
in the United States.
An entirely new organ-
ization was created under
the leadership of Henry
Morgenthau, Jr. as chair-
man of the board of
governors; Rudolf G. Son-
neborn as president, and
Henry Montor as vice
president and chief execu-
tive officer.
In February 1951, the
Knesset adopted a law
which authorized the flota-
tion of Israel's first bond
issue to be known as the Is-
rael Independence Issue.
Three months later, in
May. 1951, Ben-Gurion
came to the United States to
launch the Israel Bond
drive. It was truly an his-
toric occasion — the first
visit of the first prime
minister of Israel.
It was a triumphal visit.
Ben-Gurion was greeted
by a ticker-tape parade

up New York's lower
Broadway which was
witnessed by two million
people. He received
overwhelming responses
at similar parades and
meetings from coast to
coast, including the
dramatic opening Israel
Bond rally before a
capacity audience of
20,000 people at New
York's Madison Square
Garden.
Ben-Gurion also visited
D.C.,
Washington,
Bost
Philadelphia,
Chicago, Detroit, Clevelb._
and Los Angeles. His tour
was the occasion for
enthusiastic public demon-
strations of sympathy and
support for Israel.
Record crowds jubilantly
greeted Ben-Gurion
throughout his cross-
country tour for Bonds. One
moving event occurred
when his plane en route to
Los Angeles stopped at the
Tulsa airport in the middle
of the night for refueling.
The Prime Minister was
surprised to be greeted by
the entire Jewish commu-
nity, which came to the air=
port to cheer him.
Those were the dramatic
beginnings. The rest is the
story of what the Jewish
communities of the United
States, joined later by
Canada, Western Europe
and other parts of the free
world, did to establish Israel
Bonds as a major instru-
ment in developing Israel's
economy.

Oswald Mosley — Hitler's British Fascist

By ROBERT E. SEGAL

Seven Arts Feature

1.

Ana

Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu

* * *

"Self-Portrait of a Hero:
The Letters of Jonathan
Netanyahu, 1963-1976" has
just been published by Ran-
dom House. In his introduc-
tion to the book, Herman
Wouk states:
"Lieutenant Colonel
Jonathan Netanyahu, Is-
raeli Defense Forces, led the
storming party that in July
1976 rescued from Entebbe
Airport in Uganda 103
Jewish hostages,
threatened by pro-
Palestinian terrorists with
execution. The exploit
stunned the world. Its fame
does not dim. In the continu-
ing struggle of civilized men
against the mounting
global crime of terrorism,
Entebbe shines, a beacon in
dense gloom.

"Jonathan Netanyahu
was shot to death by a
Ugandan soldier, when the
rescue had been virtually
accomplished and the with-
drawal of the hostages was
about to begin . . . He was
the only member of the re-
scue force to die . . .

"Self-Portrait of a Hero"
is a collection of his private
correspondence, written
from his 17th year to a few
days before he died. Like
Anne Frank's diary it is a
fortuitous, not a deliber-
ately created, work of art
. . . And yet this artless
outpouring of Netanyahu's
changing ideas and shifting
moods over 13 years corn-
prise a true and brilliant
portrait of a hero."

Sir Oswald Mosley,
England's most passionate
anti-Semite and warm ad-
mirer of Adolf Hitler, died
recently just a few weeks
after the death of Fabian
von Schlabrendorff in Ger-
many.
If Mosley had triumphed
in leading his British
blackshirts, his homeland
would have fallen into Hit-
ler's hands. If von Schlab-
rendorff had succeeded in
his daring effort to assassi-
nate Hitler, his homeland
and indeed the homelands
of many other liberty-loving
peoples would have been
spared great bloodshed.
Even though Hitler, fac-
ing a lion in Churchill, tried
furiously to annihilate the
British Isles, his dedication
to the cult of Nordic supre-
macy prompted him at
times to speak of his great
affection for the British.
"The blood of every single
Englishman is too valuable
to be shed," he once de-
clared. "Our two people be-
long together racially and
traditionally. This is and

always has been my aim
even if our generals can't
grasp it."
Echoing the fuehrer's
sentiments, Mosley, who
was jailed in England
three days after Hitler
invaded Belgium, cried:
"I will fight to the last day
to keep England and
Germany friends." He
meant it, too. Back in
April 1933, when Hitler
gave a luncheon for Mos-
ley in his Munich apart-
ment, the leader of the
British Union of Fascists
told his associates that
Hitler had treated him
"with a gentle, almost
feminine charm."
Hitler and the Mosley
clan had other links. Sir
Oswald's sister-in-law,
Unity Mitford, who had
gone to Munich to study art
in the '1930's, went over-
board for Hitler and Nazi
principles the day she met
with the German dictator.
So fascinated was she with
the campaign for Nordic
supremacy the world over
that when England de-
clared war on Germany, she
said she loved both coun-
tries so much that she no
longer cared to live. This
dual loyalty took such
command over her that she
fired a bullet into her brain.
Hitler's doctors concluded
death would ensue if they
extracted the bullet. Not
until eight years later did
the pellet move in such a
way as to bring on her de-
mise.

Some died, some lived on
in the Hitler era. Unity Mit-
ford didn't make it. Neither
did Hitter. But Sir Oswald
Mosley went on and on to
his 84th year. Despite the
fact that his first wife,
Cynthia Curzon, was the
granddaughter of a wealthy
Jewish Chicagoan, Levi Z.
Leiter, Sir Oswald dedi-
cated much of his British
life to doing Hitler's dirty
work in England.
When he first opened
shop for his British Union of
Fascists, he feigned philo-
Semitism, declaring that
persecution was alien to the
British character. But as his
fiendish cause took fire in
England, in part because of
his oratorical power, he con-
centrated most of his cam-
paign directly against the
Jews.
When Julius Streicher,
editor of the Nazi prop-
aganda sheet, Der
Sturmer, favored Mosley
with editorial attention,
the British fascist spoke
lovingly of such adula-
tion and wrote Streicher:
"The forces of Jewish
corruption must be over-
come in all countries be-
fore the future of Europe
can be made sure in jus-
tice and peace."
Justice and peace! Not
. Mosley alone, but fascists
the world over have not
blushed in perverting the
meaning of these ideals.
Disregarding individual
rights to achieve their goal
of the single-party state, a

sto

-11

.

shameful troop of 20th Cen-
tury fascist leaders have
cried "justice and peace"
even while hot in the act of
garroting, bludgeoning,
crushing the lives of mil-
lions.
Hitler in Germany, Mus-
solini in Italy, Codreanu in -
Romania, Franco in Spain,
Metaxas in Greece, Peron in
Argentina — these and all
too many others have aimed
daggers at the hearts of in-
nocent men and women in
pursuit of totalitarian
power. Training along after dr
the most notorious of these
marauders have been their
intellectual kinsmen — Pe-
tain, Laval, Dalian,. Quisl-
ing and Mosley.
Americans can show the
height of patriotism by
studying these horrid
examples of extremism
while vowing to keeps
nation immune to
poison.

Weizmann Parley
Tackles Research

REHOVOT— Progress in
applied research and con-
cern over severe cutbacks in
government support were
discussed at the annual
meeting of the Weizmann
Institute's Board of Gover-
nors, held last month.
In addition to the busi-
ness sessions, a ceremony
took place at which honor- - 1
were
doctorates
ary
awarded to Prof. Rudolf M.
Bloch, Prof. Ephraim Ur-
bach and Dr. Veit Wyler.

