UP FRONT

Holocaust Dinner Speakers
Recall Wallenberg Legacy

ALAN HITSKY

Associate Editor

acob Wallenberg and Tom Lan-
tos challenged the world on
Sunday — both the Jewish and
non-Jewish world — to live up to the
ideals of Holocaust hero Raoul
Wallenberg.
"Jews must step outside
themselves;' Congressman Lantos ad-
monished the crowd of 1,100 at the
third annual Holocaust Memorial
Center dinner at the Westin Hotel.
"We must be as concerned with
human rights everywhere as we are
with the human rights of Jews."
Lantos pointed to the example of
Wallenberg, a Swedish gentile who
risked his life in 1944 to save up to
100,000 Hungarian Jews from the
Nazis, including Lantos himself.
"Raoul Wallenberg taught us that
you must speak out, that you must
put your life on the line for people
with whom you have nothing in com-
mon except your humanity." Lantos
said Jews, and the entire world, must
speak out against Chinese persecu-
tion of Tibetans, Iranian persecution
of the Bahai, and human rights
abuses everywhere.
Lantos, who represents California
in Congress, said the slogan "Never
Again" will remain empty if U.S. Jews
ever remain silent again as they did
with few exceptions during the
Holocaust. He applauded the efforts
of Jews and gentiles to demonstrate
in Washington on Dec. 6 on the eve of

j

Greeting Keith and Svetlana Braun at a Congressional reception in Washington last week are
Michigan's William Broomfield and Sander Levin. Svetlana joined her Southfield husband after
a three-year battle to leave the Soviet Union.

Recall Fever Is Spreading
But Politicians Sit Tight

LILA ORBACH

Special to The Jewish News

R

ecalls in local politics seem
to be all the rage, but few
are getting past the petition

stage.
In Huntington Woods, a group of
residents distressed by the widening
of Coolidge Highway drew up a recall
petition last spring against the five ci-
ty commission members. In response,
the commissioners filed an appeal.
But last week, Huntington Woods
City Commissioner Gilda Jacobs an-
nounced the recall petition had been

dropped and the commissioners drop-
ped their appeal.
All summer, the Coolidge Ad Hoc
Advisory Committee made up of those
calling for the recall, members of the
Traffic Safety Committee and two
commissioners met to make recom-
mendations for safety conditions
along the Coolidge corridor. They are
expected to give their report to the
commissioners by the beginning of
January.
In the meantime, in anticipation
of the additional traffic expected to
flow down Coolidge once the 1-696

Continued on Page 12

the Reagan-Gorbachev summit, say-
ing, "There is no room for silent Jews
in the 1980s."
The government of Sweden was
chastized by Lantos for failing to pro-
test the Soviet Union's arrest of
Wallenberg when the Red Army
entered Budapest in January 1945.
Lantos credited his wife, Annette, for
starting the international campaign
on Wallenberg's behalf.
Jacob Wallenberg, Raoul's second
cousin, accepted the Holocaust
Memorial Center (HMC)
Righteousness Award on behalf of the
Wallenberg family. Jacob gave some
insights into Wallenberg's character
and described the University of
Michigan graduate's life between col-
lege in Ann Arbor in the 1930s and
his rescue mission to Hungary in
1944.
Although trained in architecture
at U-M, Wallenberg found little work
in his native Stockholm. Several
business associations through his
banking family led to travels
throughout Europe and a year in pre-
war Haifa where Wallenberg inter-
viewed some of the first Jewish
refugees from Nazi Germany.
Back in Stockholm, few believed
Wallenberg's tales of the Nazi horrors.
But in 1944, an American Embassy
aide, seeking a Swede to try to rescue
Hungarian Jewry, was directed to
Wallenberg. His cousin Jacob believes
that Raoul negotiated extraordinary
freedom of movement as a Swedish

Continued on Page 12

ROUND UP

Reparations
For Arab Jews?

New York (JTA) — Knesset
speaker Shlomo Hillel con-
tends that Israel, in any
future negotiations with
Arab countries, must insist
on compensation to Jews
whose property and belong-
ings were left behind or con-
fiscated when they left their
Arab homes for Israel.
"As a matter of fact, I think
that we made a mistake when
we did not include the subject
in the peace negotiations
with Egypt," Hillel said. "It
created a precedent which
does not help the cause of
Jews from Arab countries."
Israel and Egypt signed a
peace treaty in 1979.
In an interview, the Iraqi-
born Hillel, 64, conceded he
cannot provide an estimate of
the value of property and
capital lost by the Jews who

fled the Arab countries. But
according to various sources,
the amount is $2-$3 billion.
Hillel said that about
40,000 Jews now live in the
entire Arab world, compared
to more than one million
before the State of Israel was
established in 1948. Describ-
ing the current situation, he
noted that about 25,000 Jews
live in Morocco, where they
enjoy "peace and freedom";
4,500 Jews live in Syria,
where they are "oppressed
and their movement is
limited"; and the rest live in
small Jewish communities
throughout the Arab world.
Asked about the plight of
Syrian Jewry, Hillel asserted
that only international
pressure will ease their op-
pression and enable them to
leave Syria. He said this is
the method that was used to
release the Jews of Egypt
after the 1967 Six-Day War.

Jewish Leaders
Meet Reagan

President Ronald Reagan
met Tuesday with seven pro-
minent American Jews to
discuss his upcoming summit
with Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev.
"He made a very strong
statement that human rights
will be a major part of the
agenda," said Michael
Pelavin, chairman of the Na-
tional Jewish Community
Relations Advisory Council,
who attended the meeting.
During the half-hour
meeting Reagan discussed
the planned Dec. 6
demonstration in Washington
on behalf of Soviet Jews. "He
seemed very positive about
it;' Pelavin said.
Also present at the meeting
were Secretary of State
George Shultz and former

refuseniks Vladimir and
Maria Slepak and Yuli
Edelshtein.

Eitan Leaves
Techiyah Party

Jerusalem (JTA) — Reserve
Gen. Rafael Eitan, who was
chief of staff during the
Lebanon War, announced
Monday that he is quitting
Techiyah, the right-wing
ultra-nationalist party he
joined five years ago.
He gave as his reasons per-
sonal differences with his
former political ally, member
of Knesset Geula Cohen, a
leading Techiyah activist. He
asked the Knesset Presidium
to recognize him officialy as a
one-man Knesset faction.
Eitan made his announce-
ment after his Tzomet faction
list was defeated by a vote of
133-118 in elections to

Techiyah's central committee.
His departure was seen as a
victory for Cohen and
Techiyah leader Yuval
Neeman.

Piston
Re-Bonders

Detroit Pistons star guard
Isiah Thomas and coach
Chuck Daly did not miss the
Shaarey Zedek Israel Bond
fete for Piston owner Bill
Davidson two weeks ago.
They just missed our intrepid
reporter.
Although The Jewish News
reported that the two Pistons
missed the event, hundreds of
guests hobnobbed with the
entire team, and Shaarey
Zedek member David
Hermelin reports that Isiah
earned writer's cramp, conti-
nuing to sign autographs 45
minutes after the dinner
ended.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS