NEWS! 41& CENTER FOR iCirt 4 Wayne State University JUDAIC STUDIES ••••• Female Soldier, 19, Stabbed in Old City ETHIOPIAN JEWRY Jewish Culture - African Heritage and the Modern World GIL SEDAN Special to The Jewish News Ephraim Isaac Institute for Semitic Studies Princeton, N.J. S Dr. Isaac is a specialist in Semitic languages and the religious literature that emerged around the Middle East after the close of the Old Testament. He is an Ethiopian Jew whose father came from Yemen and who as a boy learned two Semitic languagues, Geez and Hebrew. He also spoke two African languages, Oromo and Amharic, which are Cushitic cousins of the Semitic languages. He received a bachelor's degree at Concordia College in Minnesota, as well as a degree in divinity at Harvard Divinity School, and finally a doctoral degree from Harvard in Near Eastern languages, with a dissertation on classical Ethiopic. He has taught at Harvard, Princeton, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and other schools. TOPIC I Ethiopian Jewry CO-HOST: TEMPLE EMANU-EL Sunday, January 28 12:00 noon Esther Katzman Social Hall Temple Emanu-El 14450 W. Ten Mile, Oak Park Reception by Blue Nile Restaurant Photo exhibit courtesy of Holocaust Memorial Center of West Bloomfield Co-sponsoring organizations: Jewish Community Council Jewish Experience for Families Holocaust Memorial Center of W. Bloomfield B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation at WSU TOPIC II Africa and the Judeo-Christian Heritage CO-HOST: DEPARTMENT OF AFRICANA STUDIES Monday, January 29 3:00 p.m. African/American Room Manoogian Hall (Room 91) Wayne State University ADVISORY BOARD Sanford N. Cohen Eugene Driker Arthur Evans Martin Herman Evelyn Kasle Jacob Lassner* Miriam Mondry Jack A. Robinson Mark E. Schlussel Claude Schochet Guy Stem Stanley J. Winkelman George M. Zeltzer* Lawrence Ziffer *co-chairs The Center is a cooperative venture of the University and the United Jewish Charities in cooperation with the Jewish Welfare Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. S TOR Y. o \\ CO-SPONSORED BY or,rERIENCES FOR fq Temple Emanu EI - 0 o- • 20 Ping Jewish fAmilles G 14/ FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1990 REMEMBER I he had planned the visit for a long time, but had never gotten around to making it. On Jan. 15, 19-year-old Dalit Avni, dressed in her army uniform, finally went for a stroll in the Old City of Jerusalem. Unarmed and unafraid, despite stories about violence there, Avni passed through the Old City walls and waded into the Oriental bazaar. She made it as far as the perfume market, when she suddenly felt sharp pains in her back. An unidentified assailant had stabbed her seven times in the back, stomach, chest and hip. It was the first such attack in East Jerusalem in many months. Arab shopkeepers who witnessed the stabbing hur- riedly locked up and rushed from the scene. None offered to help the young woman, who lay bleeding on the pavement. An army patrol that happened by summoned an ambulance, which took Avni to Hadassah-Hebrew Uni- versity Medical Center in Ein Kerem. She was fully conscious when she arrived. Her wounds were more than superficial, yet not grave. Doctors said she suffered moderate blood loss and would be released from the hospital after a few days of observation. Avni could not tell the police much. She had only a fleeting glimpse of the assailant. Police detained 80 people for questioning. By Monday night, 20 remained in custody. In her hospital bed, Avni said the assault had not changed her opinion of Arabs. "I can understand them," she said. The Old City was popular with Israeli visitors until the intifada broke out more than two years ago. Since then, few Israelis venture into the narrow alleys of the Arab neighborhoods. Soldiers generally go there only on duty and only when armed. In recent months, violence linked to the intifada has been limited in Jerusalem to arson against Israeli cars and a few unsuccessful gaso- line-bomb attacks. Israeli vehicles are routinely ston- ed. Police are now in- vestigating a more serious incident that may have had nationalistic motivations. But they say it also could have been a purely criminal matter. The case involves a Jewish drug addict, reportedly a prostitute, who was murdered 11 days ago in the Shuafat refugee camp, near the French Hill neighborhood, where she apparently went to buy drugs. Observers believe the in- tifada will intensify in Jerusalem as the time ap- proaches to decide whether East Jerusalem Arabs can participate in the proposed Palestinian elections. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is adamantly oppos- ed, on the grounds that allowing them to take part might compromise Israel's sovereignty over East Jerusalem, which it annexed after the Six-Day War in 1967. ❑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency $50 Million Raised For Fund New York (JTA) — The United Jewish Appeal an- nounced last week that its 1989 Passage to Freedom campaign for Soviet Jews raised $50.1 million as of the Dec. 31 closing. The amount falls short of the campaign's ambitious $75 million goal, but UJA leaders nevertheless are said to be pleased with the results. UJA National Chairman Morton Kornreich reported that UJA had already col- lected $33 million of the Passage to Freedom funds raised. The announcement coin- cided with a UJA national officers meeting here Mon- day afternoon to discuss joint plans with the Jewish Agency to mount a massive new campaign. UJA had been expected to announce a drive to raise $350 million over five years for the resettlement effort. But with Soviet Jews now flowing through the gates of Ben- Gurion Airport at an unprecedented rate of ap- proximately 2,000 per week, Israeli officials have reportedly asked that the total be doubled. K K