Kahane skips Detroit visit
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New Jewish activists needed on campus
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Jewish Toronto has become a thriving community
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Lobenthal: Tracing the hatemongers
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THE JEWISH NEWS
SEPTEMBER 14, 1984
SERVING DETROIT'S METROPOLITAN JEWISH COMMUNITY
THIS ISSUE 40c
CLOSE-UP
Preaching Politics
BY SHERWOOD D. KOHN
Special to The Jewish News
In politics, the important subjects
are often the ones that politicians
avoid, and that is particularly true in
an election year, when hot topics litter
the territory like land mines.
Neither presidential candidate
was able to sidestep the church-state
separation issue last week at the B'nai
B'rith International convention in
Washington, although both managed
Craig Terkowitz
Are Reagan and Mondale, after
addressing the B'nai B'rith, backing away
from the church-state issue?
Walter Mondale
to evade most of the other controver-
sial subjects.
Both Walter Mondale and Ronald
Reagan, as you might expect, either
told the crowd what they thought it
wanted to hear, or avoided crucial is-
sues entirely, and the 1,200-plus dele-
gates greeted the speeches with some-
thing less than overwhelming
enthusiasm. In fact, "skepticism"
might be a more accurate description
of the attitudes of the people who came
to listen respectfully, applaud politely
at all the right places, and coolly corn-
pare the styles and substance of the
Democratic and Republican candi-
dates.
The near juxtaposition of the two
politicians could in no way be de-
scribed as a debate, though they spoke
Ronald Reagan
to the delegates within hours of each
other in the same hall.
To be sure, Mondale threw down
the gauntlet and challenged Reagan
on the religious issue, but the
President didn't pick ut up. The closest
he got was to say that "there will never
be a state religion in this land."
It was also noteworthy that the
Continued on Page 14
Benyas-Kaufman
Unity is delayed
Reuniting to share experiences of their mission to Ramle this summer are, seated, from left:
Risa Kreiselman Strauss, Louis Sugarman and Liz Licht, and back row, from left: Alisa
Weberman, Scott Warner and Amy Gold.
The Detroit-Ramle
summer connection
BY HEIDI PRESS
Local News Editor
Before they went to Isiael this
summer as participants in the first Is-
rael Teen Mission sponsored by a
variety of Detroit Jewish agencie,
Amy Gold and Alisa Weberman had no
"family" in Israel.
Now they and 18 of their contem-
poraries do.
In fact, says Amy, her goal as a
mission participant was to make a
family for myself in Israel." Did she
accomplish her goal? "I definitely did,"
she says.
The 11th and 12th graders spent
about 38 days in Detroit's Project Re-
Continued on Page 22
Jerusalem (JTA) — An intense
conflict over the religious affairs
portfolio - in the new government pre-
vented Premier-designate Shimon
Peres from presenting his national
unity government to the Knesset on
Wednesday, as had been scheduled.
The 11th-hour setback created the
possibility that a narrow-based gov-
ernment would have to be established
after all.
This development followed an
entire night of backroom, interparty
negotiations involving Labor, Likud
and the two religious parties, Shas and
the National Religious Party. Both of
the religious parties hold four Knesset
seats and insist that for them the reli-
gious portfolio is "ultimate." The prob-
lem is that Labor pledged its support to
the NRP on this issue while Likud —
especially Ariel Sharon — pledged its
support to Shas.
The drama came to a head during
the night when Yosef Burg of the NRP
informed Peres that his party would be
prepared to join a narrow-based gov-
ernment if Likud adhered to its posi-
tion on the religious post. The NRP has
traditionally held the Religious Af-
fairs Ministry post. Shas, a new
right-wing religious party, claims that
it should have that portfolio because it
lacks parliamentary experience to
hold any other post.
The dramatic turnabout in events
followed Sharon's stern declaration on
television Tuesday night that Likud
must stick to its commitment to Shas
even if this delayed the creation of a
unity government. Sharon also in-
sisted that a delay was necessary be-
cause of unresolved disputes with
Labor over Jewish settlements in the
administered territories and over
peace terms for talks with Jordan.
Political observers saw Sharon's
Continued on Page 23
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