Romania Chief Rabbi Demands Extradition of Michigan's Valerian Trifa for '41 Pogrom BUCHAREST (JTA) — Romanian Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen called for the extradition to Romania of the two men allegedly responsible for the January 1941 massacre of Bucharest's Jewish community. The two are Bishop Valerian Trifa who now lives in Grass Lake, Mich., and Father Vasile Boldeanu who is in Paris. The call was launched last week during a memorial service for the pogrom's victims, many of whom were burned alive when Iron Guard mobs stormed through the Jewish quarter and set fire to synagogues and various Jewish institutions. Trifa is charged with leading the crowds.and Boldeanu served at the time as the Iron Guard's Secretary General, Rosen recalled. VALERIAN TRIFA Libyans Under Qaddafi: Their Murderous Acts Affected Entire World In 1976, after 25 years in this country, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Justice Department charged Trifa with concealing his Iron Guard past wherLhe entered the U.S. and again when he applied for citizenship. The case was pending in U.S. District Court in Detroit for two years and then placed last year under the jurisdiction of a special Justice Department unit in Washington, D.C. MOSES ROSEN Terror for Mankind from Libya THE JEWISH NEWS Commentary, Page 2 A Weekly Review of Jewish Events Dilemmas as Plagues for Israel Editorials, Page 4 VOL. LXXIV,_ No. 22 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $12.00 Per Year: This Issue 30c Feb. 2, 1979 Ordination of Women Rabbis Backed by Conservative Unit Building Fund Drive for. MSU Hillel House Inauguration of a building fund drive to purchase a vitally-needed new home for the BnaiBrith Hillel Founda- tion at Michigan State University in East Lansing has gained momentum with support pledged by leaders on a state-wide basis. Accbrding to Rabbi Daniel Allen, director of MSU Hillel, the 50-year-old Hillel building at MSU served 150 Jewish students when it was converted to Hillel House in 1947. Today there are an estimated 3,004 Jewish students attending Michigan State. Rabbi Allen said the old building is woefully in- adequate for religious, cultural and counseling ac- tivities and needs major repairs. The MSU Hillel House board found a newer building close to campus, and the Hillel Foundationis seeking to raise $40.0,000 to purchase, remodel and furnish the building. The new facility was built in the mid-1960s and is currently used for student housing. It is more conveniently located, will provide more wor- ship space, live-in rooms for students, a kitchen for Sabbath and Passover meals and more space for Hillel program- ming, according to Rabbi Allen. Gov. William Milliken, MSU President Edgar L. Harden (Continued on Page 5) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The recommendation that "qualified women be ordained as rabbis in the Conservative movement" was submitted Tuesday night to the 79th annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international organization of Conservative rabbis. The recommendation was contained in the final report of the Commission for the Study of the Ordination of Women as Rabbis, composed of 14 members representing the range of background and opinion of the Conservative movement in Judaism. Dr. Gerson D. Cohen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, reported on the conclusions of the commission, which he had convened in 1977 at the request of the Rabbinical Assembly, and which he has led as chairman. According to the 29-page report, which includes both a majority and minority opinion, the majority recommendations, supported by 11 of the 14 commission members are: • That the rabbinical school of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America revise its admission procedures to allow for applications from female candidates and the processing thereof for the purpose of admission to the ordination program on a basis equal to that main- tained heretofore for males. • That this revision of policy be accomplished as quickly as possible, preferably so as to allow applications Five hundred additional immigrants will join the Jewish commun- from women for the academic year ity of Detroit in 1979 as its share in the nationwide program to absorb a beginning in September 1979. new influx from the Soviet Union. • That the Jewish Theological The Board of Governors of the Jewish Welfare Federation, meeting Seminary of America take steps. to with the United Jewish Charities at its annual meeting, voted to set up appropriate apparatuses for extend every effort toward this end through the services of Federation agencies. Some 30,000 persons may arrive in the U.S. from the Soviet the recruitment, orientation, and Union in 1979, more than double the 1978 figure. eventually, career placement of Federation President George M. Zeltzer said that Detroit's readi- female rabbinical students. ness to resettle the Russian immigrants is an expression of this com- • That the major arms of the Con- munity's sense of responsibility for fellow Jews in need. Resettlement 500 Soviet Jews Are Due (Continued on. Page 6) (Continued on Page 5) Tightened Restrictions and Harassment Jeopardize Syrian Jewry (Editor's note: The American Jewish Committee has issued a background report on the recent deterioration in the position of the Jews of Syria. In the past few weeks there has been a dramatic worsening of the attitude of the Syrian NEW YORK — In the last month alone some 20 men in Damascus and Aleppo were brutally beaten and detained for sev- eral days by the Muhabarat (intelligence or secret police), apparently because they were suspected of helping Jewish families who successfully managed to flee the coun- try. Syria continues to bar Jewish emigra- tion. The Syrian authorities have also reim- posed restrictions on internal travel and transfer of property that had previously been lifted. Muhabarat agents are present at synagogue services, and Jews have been warned that any Jewish home that does not have lights on in the evening will im- mediately be searched. It is not clear whether these measures are solely promp- ted by Syrian annoyance at the increased "illegal" departure by Jews or whether they reflect a fuudamental reversal of the liberalization that had been gradually in- troduced by President Hafez al-Assad in the wake of international publicity on the plight of the Jewish community and the desire of Syria to improve its relations with the U.S. Syrian-American relations have been strained recently over Syrian military in- volvement in Lebanon and Syria's vehe- ment criticism of the American-backed Camp David agreements. The growing rapprochement between the long feuding Syrian and Iraqi regimes, highlighted by the visit of Iraqi President Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr to Damascus amid reports that the two countries are planning to unite, also raises fears in the Jewish community. authorities towards the country's 4,500 remaining Jews. This has led to fears that all the hard-won improvements in the daily life of the Jewish community in recent years may now be undone.) Iraqi brutality against the Jews has ex- ceeded that of the Syrians and culminated in the hangings of Iraqi Jews in Baghdad in 1969 on false charges of spying for Is- rael, the U.S. and the Shah of Iran. (Yet paradoxically at other times Iraq'has per- mitted its Jews to emigrate freely and today only some 300 elderly persons re- main.) Within Syria itself there have been persistent reports of attempted coups by factions opposing the intervention in Lebanon or the rapprochement with Iraq and Assad recently replaced sev- eral military and civilian officials. Assad is a member of the Shiite minor- ity (known as Alawis in Syria) and thus also faces opposition from some Sunni elements. One cannot now predict the effect the resurgence of Shiite Islamic fanaticism in Iran may have upon the internal situation within Syria and the position of the Jews. About a year-and-a-half ago, the gov- ernment removed the requirement that Jews get written permission from the Muhabarat for travel from one city to another. Early in 1977 promises were also made that the special designation "Musawi" (of the Mosaic faith) in red ink on identity cards, passports, drivers' licenses and banking documents would be eliminated. New identity cards tended to have Musawi entered in blue ink in' the place for religion — although in most new identity cards for Moslems and Christians the space is left blank. Some Jews continue (Continued on Page 7) MARCH 27, 1992 125