'Funeral' Draws Politicians'
Support For Palestinians

ELIZABETH KAPLAN

Staff Writer

C

oncern for human rights
violations against Pales-
tinians in the administered
territories is what prompted two
Michigan politicians to support a self-
titled "funeral procession to honor the
martyrs of the Palestinian struggle"
here late last week.
The procession, led by a hearse
traveling from Dearborn to Detroit,

Edie Mittenthal, Susan Citrin, Barbara Tukel, Susan Jacobs, Beverly Liss, Linda Zlotoff and
Cheryl Riback — members of the Jewish Federation's Women's Hadracha — show off their
bracelets 'supporting the fast of 17-year Soviet refusenik Yuli Kosharovsky. Detroiters are
fasting on a rotating schedule in support of Kosharovsky's hunger strike.

State Office Will Pursue
Kosher Food Complaints

ALAN HITSKY

Associate Editor

T

he Michigan Department of
Agriculture has designated
its Southfield office to receive
complaints about kosher products
from the public.
The department's office at 23777
Greenfield will investigate com-
plaints, following an agreement last
month to end a lawsuit brought on
behalf of the Council of Orthodox Rab-
bis of Greater Detroit. The lawsuit
has in effect forced the department to
enforce the 20-year-old state kosher
statute.
Harold Zorlen, supervisor, said his
office will continue to work under a
handicap in investigating complaints
under the kosher law. "We have a
total of 23 inspectors for southeastern

Michigan," Zorlen said, "and our
responsibilities include weights and
measures, motor fuel quality, as well
as food quality."
Zorlen was in the process of hir-
ing five additional inspectors last fall
when the Blanchard Administration
ordered a hiring freeze.

"We'll take the complaints, either
verbally or in writing' Zorlen said.
"But I'll have to be honest. They won't
take the same priority as complaints
about a food illness or a dirty
establishment?'

The Southfield office processes
several hundred complaints each
month, but the investigations take
time. Zorlen spent several days last
week testifying in court on the seizure
several years ago of gasoline pumps
Continued on Page 19

attracted some 600 participants and
the support of three area politicians.
It was announced in local ads il-
lustrated with coffins and carrying a
plea to "please join us . . . in solidari-
ty with the Palestinian uprising in
the occupied Holy Land?'
According to Gina Santi, presi-
dent of the Detroit chapter of the
Palestine Aid Society and an
employee in the local office of Rep.
John Conyers, the event also featured

Continued on Page 18

Fresh Air Society Studying
W. Michigan Family Camp

STAFF REPORT

T

he Fresh Air Society may
begin a summer family camp-
ing program in western
Michigan in 1989.
FAS mailed 400 questionnaires
this week to families who have par-
ticipated in recent years in its family
camp weekends and summer pro-
grams at the Butzel Conference
Center at Camp Maas in Ortonville.
FAS is studying "a different kind
of experience than at Butzel," said Dr.
Richard Krugel, president of the
agency. "We want a summer camp
some place in western Michigan a la
Michigania in program, but not in
structure." Michigania is a summer
family camp sponsored by the Univer-
sity of Michigan on Walloon Lake
near Charlevoix.
"Michigania has a large Jewish
following, but this is not a challenge
to them," Dr. Krugel said. "We want
to do the same thing — a recreational
program — but with Jewish content?'
A camp in western Michigan
would offer more recreational ac-
tivities for families than Butzel does

when Camp Maas is in session, said
Dr. Krugel. It also would offer more
space — Butzel is limited to 14-15
families per week during the summer.
A camp near Lake Michigan
could be made available to Jewish
families from Wisconsin, Illinois, In-
diana and Ohio.
FAS is studying renting a camp
30 minutes north of Muskegon, on
Silver Lake. The camp has 27 cabins;
each can house from three to nine per-
sons. It has a 400-foot beach, a
125-capacity dining room, a recrea-
tion hall, two tennis courts and a
swimming pool, and is within two
miles of Lake Michigan.
Ed Lumberg, chairman of the FAS
Family Camp Committee, told The
Jewish News that this week's ques-
tionnaire is designed to "investigate
the possibility" of expanding the
family camp program beyond Butzel.
"The success of the JEFF (Jewish Ex-
periences For Families) program has
developed a larger interest in family
camping activities. We want to ex-
plore that interest?'
Dr. Krugel said no decision would
be made until this summer.

(ROUND UP

Film Sparks
Demonstration

Amsterdam (JTA) — An
anti-Israel protest through
downtown Amsterdam last
week — which at one point
verged on violence — was the
outcome of a CBS News film
broadcast on Dutch
television.
The film, also screened in
Israel, showed four Israel
Defense Force soldiers kick-
ing and beating two handcuff-
ed Palestinians under inter-
rogation at a military prison
in the West Bank.

The local "Solidarity Com-
mittee with the Palestinians
in the Occupied Areas"
organized the protest march.
Several hundred Palestinians,
Moroccans and Kurds par-
ticipated, along with Dutch
sympathizers.

The NCSJ . and the Long
Island Committee for Soviet
Jewry also reported an ap-
parent relaxation in the first-
degree relative requirement
for emigrating, according to
accounts from refuseniks in
Moscow, Leningrad and Riga.

730 Soviet
Jews Emigrate

At the same time, however,
Soviet authorities reportedly
are targeting for the draft
young men whose families
have applied to leave the
Soviet Union. Families with
sons more than 16 1/2 years old
are not being allowed to app-
ly unless the sons get permis-
sion from the militia.

New York (JTA) — Soviet
Jewish emigration figures for
February totaled 730, a slight
rise from the January total of
722, the National Conference
on Soviet Jewry reported this
week.

Sharansky Is
Inducted In IDF

Tel Aviv (JTA) — Former
refusenik Natan Sharansky
was inducted into the Israel
Defense Force this week, lit-
tle more than two years after
his arrival in Israel.
Sharansky spent his first
day in the army learning how
to dismantle a rifle. The
40-year-old Soviet Jewry ac-
tivist will undergo a shorten-
ed basic training period and
then be posted to the reserves.
Dressed in ill-fitting
fatigues, Sharansky told an

interviewer that he would not
shirk military duty, even
though he has been offered a
job as a lecturer in the IDF
education corps.

Granot On Tour
To China

Aviv (JTA) - Knesset
member Elazar Granot,
secretary general of the
Mapam Party, was due to
enter China from Hong Kong
Tuesday for a ten-day visit.
He is the first member of a
Zionist party to be invited by
the People's Republic of
China.

