UP FRONT
'Fury' Is A
Four-Letter Word
Whether or not James Baker used the 'F' word,
relations between the administration and the
Jews are dismal.
JAMES BESSER
Washington Correspondent
T
he most notable aspect
of last week's flap over
reports that Secretary
of State James Baker had
dismissed Jewish voters
with a four-letter expletive
is that nobody in Washing-
ton seemed particularly sur-
prised.
The readiness of the Jew-
ish community to believe the
reports reflected a hard
truth: the strains created by
the battle over $10 billion in
loan guarantees for Israel
and the administration's
single-minded pursuit of an
Israeli settlements freeze go
well beyond ordinary polit-
ical dialogue.
"The question of whether
or not he said it may be
beside the point," said Dan
Mariaschin, director of
international and public af-
fairs for B'nai B'rith.
"There's been a tremendous
amount of tension built up
over four years, and we're
seeing a lot of that come out
now. There just aren't a lot
of people willing to give him
the benefit of the doubt."
And as the volatile elec-
tions both here and in Israel
get closer, that soured rela-
tionship could produce new
shocks to the Washington-
Jerusalem alliance.
Reports of Mr. Baker's ex-
cursion into Nixonian
phraseology during a private
meeting of White House offi-
cials, which had been churn-
ing around the Washington
rumor mill for several days
in various forms, surfaced on
Friday in a New York Post
column by former New York
Mayor Ed Koch.
The State Department
quickly dismissed Mr.
Koch's assertions as
"outrageous garbage." Mr.
Baker forcefully repeated
that denial to leaders of the
Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish
Organizations on Friday.
And in a letter to the Anti-
Defamation League, Mr.
Baker said that he was
"deeply offended by the false
and malicious press story.
Nothing could be further
from the truth than that
story, and nothing could be
further from my beliefs and
values."
But the denials seemed
almost beside the point.
"The strains in the
U.S.-Israeli relationship,
and the administration's
heavy-handed approach, are
such that this kind of story
almost seems to reinforce a
view that has already been
created about administra-
tion attitudes," said Jess
Hordes, Washington director
for ADL. "That's one reason
this story — along with
Koch's standing in the Jew-
ish community — was
believed."
"The conditions were right
for it to be believed," said
Shoshana Cardin, chair of
the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish
Organizations. "It's obvious-
ly a very strained relation-
ship."
Those strains worsened in
recent days as a result of Mr.
Baker's harsh congressional
testimony, and by the ap-
parent failure of efforts to
work out a compromise for-
mula that would provide
Israel with some of the
guaranteed loans and defer
the rest, pending a resolu-
tion of the settlements con-
troversy.
"Baker The Bleep" is how the New York Post referred to the Secretary
of State last Friday.
Ms. Cardin's meeting with
Mr. Baker on Friday was in-
tended to ease some of those
strains.
According to Ms. Cardin,
the meeting was not a re-
sponse to Mr. Koch's
charges. Instead, the session
was hastily scheduled after
State Department Policy
Planning Chief Dennis Ross
reported back to his boss on
his Thursday meeting with
leaders of the Presidents'
Conference.
Mr. Ross was reportedly
shocked by the mood he en-
countered as he discussed
the controversial issue of
loan guarantees for Israel —
a mood several participants
characterized as "more pain
than anger."
"He was hit with the very
widespread feeling in the
Jewish community that the
matrimonial fact and
folklore.
For information, contact
the U.A1-1C Press, 838 Fifth
Ave., New York, N.Y.,
10021, or call (212) 249-0100.
events "in the land of Jesus
Christ, our savior."
Seems Christian funda-
mentalists, who have sided
with Israel in its decades-old
struggle for peace, are
tuning in to news about just
who's in charge of Jesus' bir-
thplace.
ROUND UP
Program Focuses
On Environment
American Jewish leaders
are meeting this week in
Washington for the Con-
sultation on the Envi-
ronment and Jewish Life in
Washington, D.C.
Participants include Sens.
Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.,
Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.,
and Arlen Specter, R-Penn.,
scientist Carl Sagan of
Cornell University, and
Shoshana Cardin, chairman
of the Conference of Presi-
dents of Major American •
Jewish Organizations.
The conference was con-
vened by Rabbis Marc Angel
of the Orthodox Rabbinical
Council of America, Arthur
Green of the Reconstruc-
tionist Rabbinical College,
Alexander Schindler of the
Reform Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, and
Ismar Schorsch of the Con-
servative Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary of America.
The program will deal
with such ecological dangers
as global warming, the
depletion of the ozone layer
and deforestation. It repre-
sents the Jewish commun-
ity's first major effort to
formulate educational and
policy responses to the envi-
ronmental crisis.
With This Book,
I Thee Wed
The Union of American
Hebrew Congregations has
just published The Jewish
Wedding Book, written by
Detroit native Rabbi Daniel
Syme, senior vice president
of the UAHC.
The book is filled with
pages for wedding photos, for
recording how the couple
met and decided to marry,
The
Jewish
Wedding
Book
li,x4
*Ad r),I,
RAMII DANIEL 13 SYME.
Rabbi Syme's new book.
and for plans for the wed-
ding celebration. It gives
space for the family histories
of the bride and groom.
The Jewish Wedding Book
also includes practical ad-
vice on where to hold the
wedding and what kind of
rings to choose, and serves
as a compendium of Jewish
Post Hitches A Ride
With The Watchman
Thinking about subscrib-
ing to an Israeli paper for
the latest news from
Jerusalem? For subscription
information, tune in to .. .
Christian broadcasting.
The Jerusalem Post, an
English-language daily
published in Jerusalem, is
trying to woo new
subscribers from an alto-
gether different audience.
Listeners to Southwest
Radio's "Watchman on the
Wall" show last Monday
could hear the Post seek
subscribers who would be in-
terested in hearing about
Turkish Paper
Debuts In Israel
And speaking of news .. .
A new newspaper, Haver, re-
cently made its debut in
Israel.
Haver, which means
"friend" in Hebrew and
"news" in Turkish, covers
news of interest to the
100,000 Israelis of Turkish
background. The paper. in-
cludes six pages in Turkish
and two in Ladino.
Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 11