Z Friday, December 30, 1983

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

UNESCO's Atrocious Record:
U.S. Must Withdraw From
This Hate-Rendering Agency

Hate-mongering had become the basic activity of the
Jnited Nations, under the domination of the Arab and
Soviet blocs. Nevertheless, there has been only a minimal
)roposal that the U.S. withdraw from the world organiza-
tion. The chief U.S. delegate, Jean Kirkpatrick, whose ap-
)roaching retirement from that office is now a certainty,
!yen expressed satisfaction with the current approaches to
mportant issues, the Middle East being an exception.
There is one agency, however, which continues on a
tath of so much venom that it can not be tolerated, is under
evere attack, even the State Department suggesting the
J.S. withdrawal from it. To UNESCO — United Nations
educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — are
tscribed so many deviations from common decencies relat-
ng to the very titles in the name of this agency, that many
!fforts have already been made to curb its violations. In
act, a movement, to end its vileness commenced in the U.S.
Senate with reductions in allocations for UNESCO's exist-
lice. Now the State Department, in reviewing the status of
his agency, supports U.S. withdrawal from it.
Urging adherence to State's proposal, Owen Harries, a
ormer ambassador to UNESCO from Australia, describes
he list of crimes committed by UNESCO in an analytical
assay in the New York Times. Harries indicts UNESCO on
his basis:
UNESCO is a thoroughly politicized institu-
tion dedicated to attacking fundamental Western
values, interests and institutions. It attacks and
seeks to circumscribe the free Western press. It
characterizes Western culture as an "imperialist"
threat to the identity of other peoples.
It attacks the free-market economy and
multi-national corporations. It seeks to
downgrade individual human rights in favor of
nebulous and proliferating "rights of peoples,"
thus helping tyrannical states to impose their or-
thodoxies on their subjects.
Its pronouncements on the complex and deli-
cate issues of peace and disarmament — subjects
on which it is incompetent — are biased and hos-
tile to the Western case.
It is consistently hostile to Israel and provides
political and financial support to the Palestine
Liberation Organization.
It is not merely the Third World majority and
the Soviet-bloc member countries that engage in
these attacks. The UNESCO Secretariat — up to
and most definitely including the Director Gen-
eral, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, of Senegal — is
thoroughly politicized and anti-American.
On the other hand, the organization is mostly
silent about the sins of totalitarian regimes and
repressive Third World countries. (It is worth not-
ing, because it conveys something of the atmos-
phere of the organization, that when President
Francois Mitterrand of France expelled 49 Soviet
spies earlier this year, a quarter of them were
connected with UNESCO.)
Harries warns that the U.S. would emerge as a Paper
tiger and would lose its credibility on the international
icene if it did not act to end the UNESCO crimes by with-
irawing from it.
Showing how UNESCO is thoroughly mismanaged,
;uggesting waste of funds, Harries emphasizes the need for
he U.S. to withdraw from the agency, and the importance
)f such an act in retaining a sense of honor for the world
zganization itself, and he • concludes with this appeal to
-eason:

It seems to me that the United States should
withdraw from UNESCO. It is politically and
morally wrong for it to lend authority and legiti-
macy — and to provide some $50 million a year, or
25 percent of UNESCO's budget — to such an
organization.
Some people will dispute this conclusion and
argue that the United States should stay and work
to improve things from the inside. But this has
been tried over the last few years and it has failed.
The problem is that the deck at UNESCO is so
stacked — by the one-member, one-vote system,
the biased and confrontational Director General,
the politicized Secretariat, the widespread use of
patronage and the divorce of funding from deci-
sion making — that no amount of effort will effect
significant change. The problem is a political one
and will yield only to a political solution.
An announcement of the United States' inten-
tion to withdraw would register a salutary shock
in UNESCO. Pragmatic Third World countries
would have to think again, weigh the costs of un-
inhabited anti-Americanism and consider seri-
ously the advisability of putting the UNESCO
house in order. It would also have a healthy effect

A Serious American Responsibility: To End
the Farce of Remaining in the Vicious Ranks
of UNESCO's Terrorist, Barbaric Inhumanities

on America's relations with the other parts of the
United Nations system.
Above all, a decision to withdraw would have
a good-effect on the United States itself. A country
that takes its ideas and its values seriously can-
not, without doing damage to its sense of itself,
afford to subsidize an organization that systemat-
ically undermines those ideas and values and that
shows consistent hostility to the institutions that
embody them.
The movement to adhere to these suggestions must be
strengthened. It must begin with a denial of U.S. funds for
UNESCO. It must proceed with total withdrawal. Perhaps
there will then be an end to all the inanities and cruelties
emanating from that source, including the outrageous
treatment of Israel by the UNESCO dominating forces.
Such actions are in the best interests of decency on a world
scale.
There would be a postponement of firmness in dealing
with social-political decencies if the French effort to induce
American postponement of a decision to withdraw from
UNESCO were to succeed.

Surinam as 'Jewish State'
Revealed in Interesting
Wall St. Journal Letter

Letters to editors of newspapers often reveal valuable
facts. Such is the case in the instance of a letter published in
the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 22. Signed by Manfred R.
Lehman of New York, the letter states under the heading
"Jewish State":
Your interesting article (page one, Dec. 7) on
Suriname brings out the interplay between that
country and Brazil, evidently with the approval of
the U.S. Interestingly, these three countries were
closely connected in centuries past.
Suriname was largely developed in the early
17th Century by Brazilian Jews who had to es-
cape from the cruel Portuguese Inquisition im-
posed in 1654. These Jews came to Suriname and
established the first independent Jewish state
after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in
70 A.D. This state was called the "Joden Savanna"
or in Hebrew "Ir Surinam," complete with its own
army, court and administration, besides magnifi-
cent synagogues.
The ruins of the Jewish state, including hun-
dreds of beautiful tombstones, were recently re-
stored and can be visited in the jungle south of
Paramaribo.
These Jews sent donations to the Spanish -
Portuguese congregations in New York and
Newport, R.I., where the earliest synagogues in
the U.S. were built with their money. In the
synagogue of Congregation Shearith Israel in
New York, thanksgiving prayers are recited
every Yom Kippur and Passover for the generos-
ity of the Brazilian Jews of Suriname's "Joden
Savanna," although the last Jewish residents
abandoned the jungle state in 1826 when they
moved to Paramaribo.
Historians, take note. Such an item merits followup
study and publication of additional facts about Surinam.

Surinam — Historically
Traced Community

There is nothing in the encyclopedic Jewish records to
indicate the "Jewish State" designation.
The current Surinam population of some 400,000 has
less than 500 Jews.
Perhaps Wall Street Journal Correspondent Lehman
can provide additional facts. One element is certain. As the
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia states, Surinam was "the
oldest permanent Jewish settlement in the Western Hemi-
sphere."
The Encyclopedia Judaica provides this historical re-
cord for Surinam:
SURINAM, Dutch Guiana, territory of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands located in N.E. South
America . . . Although Spanish, Portuguese, and
English adventurers explored parts of Surinam in
the 15th and 16th Centuries, successful settlement
efforts did not get started until the first half of the
17th Century.
Jews apparently arrived from Brazil (or Hol-
land) and settled in Surinam as early as 1639, and
there is an extant ketuba indicating a marriage
conducted there by a rabbi in 1643. A second
group of Jewish settlers arrived from England.
When Surinam surrendered to the Dutch in
1667, some of the colonists left, but not without
opposition on the part of the Dutch authorities.
The Jewish community continued to prosper
under the Dutch, owning numerous slaves and
plantations. Nevertheless, a number of the
settlers tried to leave in 1674 but were forcibly

By Philip
Slomovitz

held back by the Dutch. Two years later the Jews
were promised free exercise of their religion, hav-
ing been restricted by the Dutch after their occu-
pation of Surinam in 1667.
In 1685 the Cayenne Jews erected the second
synagogue in the colony, located at Joden
Savanne, about 10 miles from Paramaribo, the
largest city in Surinam. By 1694 there were 92
Portuguese Jewish families and some 12 German
Jewish ones in the colony, totaling 570 persons
who had holdings of more than 40 plantations and
9,000 slaves. The economic position of the com-
munity rose rapidly during the first half of the
18th Century. Jews owned 115 of 400 plantations
in 1730; their position declined, and toward the
end of the century in 1791 they only owned 46 of
600 plantations.
Anti-Jewish feelings grew slowly in the col-
ony, which led to various efforts on the part of the
Dutch to restrict the religious freedom of the Jews
beginning in 1667. Furthermore, differences
arose between the Portuguese and German com-
munities and the latter formed a separate com-
munity, Cong. Neve Shalom, in 1734. The German
community continued to grow throughout the
18th and 19th Centuries so that by 1836 it was
larger than the Portuguese one.
In 1825 all special privileges which had prev-
iously been granted to the community were no
longer necessary, since they enjoyed full and
equal rights as subjects of the crown. Dutch
gradually replaced Portuguese as the language of
the community, which grew to approximately
1,500 by the beginning of the 20th Century.
The economic decline of the community was
largely connected with the abolition of the slave
trade in 1819 and the emancipation of the slaves in
1863. As the export of sugarcane dropped off dur-
ing the 19th Century, the inhabitants made efforts
to adapt the soil to other uses; as their efforts
failed, they moved largely to the coastal areas.
At any rate, Manfred Lehman provided inspiration for
history-tracing.

Proselytizers; Money

So much newspaper advertising space has been pur-
chased under the title "Jews for Jesus" that there is cause
for wondering where the money comes from.
Years ago, the coffers used to be filled with coins used
to convert Jews to Christianity. Now it seems that the
converted have taken over. They were called Meshumadim.
They still are, of course.
The question is, who gives them courage, money,
authority? -
The best Christians repudiate such actions and it had
been doubted that this Jewish soul-seeking movement
gains much respect.
In the main, Christians now treat Jews as neighbors,
fellow citizens, partners in trading, associates in literature.
Here are a couple of quotes worth applying as reminders to
"Jews for Jesus" that proselytizing is evil and Jesus' name_
is treated by them in vain:
It is curious to see a superstition dying out.
The idea of a Jew (which our pious ancestors held
in horror) has nothing in it now revolting. We have
found the claws of the beast, and pared its nails,
and now we take it to our arms, fondle it, write
plays to flatter it: it is visited by princes, affects a
taste, patronizes the arts, and is the only liberal
and gentleman-like thing in Christendom.
—Charles Lamb
In my experience, the men who want some-
thing for nothing are invariably Christians.
—Bernard Shaw
Whatever one does, proselytizing will be difficult to
stop or interfere with. And when lots of money is available,
as evidenced by the many newspaper ads, how can one end
temptations? Such is the root of the objectionable ads.

Mubarak and Arafat

Arafat appears discredited but Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak saw fit to be the first Arab chieftain to give
the PLO barbarian comfort. Mubarak was the first to wel-
come the PLO terrorist when he found a way to escape from
Lebanon with his hordes of terrorist followers.
Any wonder that so many should have mistrusted the
Egyptian role in the peace agreement with Israel?
Any wonder that Israel has so much to contend with in
the battle for security and in the quest for peace with
saber-rattling neighbors?
That the Arafat-Mubarak fellowship should have won
approval from American officials is an added shock to the
sensibilities of all who seek justice, decency and common
sense in the Middle East.
Even greater is the wonder that there are Jews who
either fail or hesitate to provide Israel with the much
needed support in the battle for life.
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