UP FRONT

Federations Guarantee
$900 Million In Loans

Detroit will back $29 million of the package for
Soviet immigrants in Israel.

JAMES D. BESSER

Washington Correspondent

A

merican Jewry voted
to put its money
where its mouth is at
this week's special General
Assembly of the Council of
Jewish Federations.
The result was a $900 mill-
ion loan guarantee program,
approved to help fund the
resettlement of Soviet Jews
in Israel.
The loan guarantee
scheme, unique in Jewish
fund-raising, means that
local federations around the
country will put their own
assets on the line to guar-
antee loans from private
Israeli banks to individual
Soviet refugees.
The decision generated a
strong wave of concern from
several federations. But
when the votes were tallied
at the meeting in Washing-
ton, the CJF proposal passed
overwhelmingly.
The Detroit Jewish Wel-

fare Federation will be
responsible for backing $29
million in loans. - -
"We feel that this is why
you put money away for a
rainy day," said Jane Sher-
man, vice-president of the
Detroit Jewish Welfare Fed-
eration. "We have an oppor-
tunity to save the major re-
maining Jewish community

"This is an
opportunity we
can't let pass."

Jane Sherman

that's not free. Most of us
here recognize that this is a
unique moment in history
that we need to face."
Only three federations —
Boston, Cleveland and
Madison, Wis. — voted
against the proposal. The
dissenters had argued that
federations would be putting
their assets in jeopardy by
signing the indemnifying
agreements.

"Based on the most recent
audit of our books by the
public accounting firm we
use, the indemnification
agreements would subject
Madison to the potential of
173 percent of its total fund
balances," said Isadore Fine,
a former president of the
Madison Jewish Community
Council.
The loan proposal was a
desperate response to a pro-
jected deficit of more than
$1.35 billion for the Jewish
Agency for Israel, based on
expectations that more than
one million Soviet newcomers
will have arrived in Israel —
as part of the latest wave of
immigration — by the end of
1993.
But the Jewish commun-
ity, already pinched by the
special Operation Exodus
fund-raising drive and hard
hit by the recession, is
unlikely to come up with the
money required to close the
gap, according to CJF
planners.
Under the CJF plan, fed-

Emigrating Jews line up for the last leg of their journey.

eration-backed loans for
immigrants would replace
the $1,000 per immigrant
share of absorption services
now supplied by the Jewish
Agency.
The loans would feature
liberal repayment terms
over a 10-year period, with
no repayment for the first
four years.
The concept also calls for a
$200 million loan reserve
fund to cover defaulted loans
in Israel.
The risk, according to CJF,
is minimal. In the past, more
than 90 percent of loans to
immigrants have been
repaid, CJF officials said.
But on the floor of the

General Assembly,
dissenters worried that
there are few statistics to
back up this claim. Some
federation officials express-
ed concern that the default
rate could soar, if Israel fails
to complete the economic ab-
sorption of the new arrivals.
The result could mean major
losses for Jewish federations
all over the United States.
"It's a tremendous leap of
faith," said an official with a
major agency involved in the
resettlement process in
Israel. "It's far from clear
whether Soviet Jews will
really have much of an- in-
centive to repay these loans.
It's classic deficit spending

milk cans were buried in
separate, secret locations.
Only two of the cans have
been discovered.
The Holocaust Memorial
Museum's can was found by
construction workers in
1950 under the ruins of a
building at 68 Nowolipki
Street. The other can was
uncovered in 1946 and re-
mains in the Jewish
Historical Institute in
Poland.
Mr. Ringelblum 'took the
first steps in organizing the
secret archive in October
1939. He said the archive
had three goals: to document
the suffering of Warsaw
Jewry; to preserve items of
historical significance, in-
cluding Jewish underground
newspapers and minutes of
meetings of Warsaw's clan-
destine Jewish political par-
ties; and to collect oral
testimonies of Jews who
witnessed the Holocaust.
Among the items found in
the milk cans was Mr.
Ringelblum's own diary,
which was published in 1958
as Notes from the Warsaw
Ghetto.

Although much of the
Ringelblum archive surviv-
ed the Holocaust, Emanual
Ringelblum did not. He
escaped the Warsaw Ghetto
in March 1943, but was
discovered in hiding on the
"Aryan side" of Warsaw on
March 7, 1944, and was
killed by the Nazis.

ROUND UP

Study Reports
No Prison Abuse
Washington, D.C. — While
conditions in Israeli prisons
and detention camps may be
Spartan, no evidence exists
of widespread abuses or ill-
treatment of prisoners, a
leading human rights in-
vestigator reports.
Professor Rita Simon of
the Department of Justice,
Law and Society at the
American University School
of Public Affairs said the
terrible stories .frequently
told about Israeli prisons
"simply aren't true."
Overall, Ms. Simon said,
conditions in Israeli prisons
and the treatment of Israeli
and Arab prisoners appear
equal to, or better than,
those in most American and
European prisons.
Ms. Simon, a member of
the American University
law school faculty, recently
returned from Israel on a
trip sponsored by Middle
East Watch, an affiliate of
the New York-based human
rights monitoring group,
Human Rights Watch.

Ms. Simon, who has con-
ducted similar investiga-
tions on prison conditions in
China and Tibet, visited
prisons run by the Israeli
Prison Service (IPS) for Arab
and Israeli criminal
offender'S; Israel Defense
Force prisons for Palestin-.
ians charged or convicted of
terrorism and security viola-
tions; and two police
lockups.
After meeting with
prisoners, Ms. Simon said
she received no complaints
about the IPS prisons.
Though "army-run facilities
are clearly inferior," Ms.
Simon said she found in-
mates at IDF prisons "sound
and healthy and well-fed.
They are permitted to create
their own menus and
prepare their own food and
practice their religion."

Museum Acquires
Ringelblum Can
Washington, D.C. — The
U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum, now under con-
struction in Washington, re-

Museum directors with the
Ringelblum milk can.

cently received an unforget-
table artifact from the Holo-
caust: a milk can in which
historian Emanual
Ringelblum placed archival
materials of the Warsaw
Ghetto.
The milk can, which is on
long-term loan from the Jew-
ish Historical Institute in
Warsaw, was filled with
hundreds of documents
describing daily life in the
Warsaw Ghetto. Three such

Looking For A
Non-Kosher Zeyde
Hollywood, Fla. — Looking
for that certain someone to
make your Passover Seder
complete? That's what a
woman in Hollywood, Fla.,
was doing earlier this mon-
th, when she put an ad in the
Florida Jewish Advocate look-
ing for "Zeyde for our Seder."

The ad, placed by a family
in Davie, Fla., expressed a
desire to "Rent a Zeyde" for
the first night of Passover.
One disclaimer: "Non-
kosher dinner."

Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

11