UP FRONT

•

'Air Power

BAs the election nears, the parties are airing
increasingly nasty political ads on TV.

LARRY DERFNER

Israel Correspondent

..

I

srael's political campaign
has entered its final,
decisive phase, and is
k now being .,ought every
weeknight, from 8:30 to 9, in
voters' living rooms.
,,, On June 2, the political
parties began airing their
campaign advertisements on
Israel Television, and over
ehalf the population has been
tuning in.
Until Election Day, June
• 23, the half-hour of brief
campaign broadcasts are all
the voters will see on televi-
sion of Yitzhak Shamir, Yit-
zhak Rabin or any other ac-
tive politician; the faces and
voices of all Knesset can-
didates are now legally
•armed from the news and
other TV shows.
In the first week of the
televised propaganda war,
the Likud bloodied Labor.
- It ran a "mini-docudrama"
of Mr. Rabin's admitted one-
-day collapse from stress on
the eve of the Six-Day War,
When he was army chief of
staff. The spot showed a man

— his head cropped out of
the frame — locking himself
up in his room, depressed,
beaten. Then came clips
from Mr. Rabin's resigna-
tion as prime minister in
1977, due to the revelation of
his wife's illegal $10,000
bank account in the U.S. Old
quotes from Ezer Weizmann,
Abba Eban and other former
Labor stalwarts, charging

Likud's strategy is,
"we'll show you
who's macho
here."

that Mr. Rabin was unfit to
lead the country, ran across
the bottom of the screen.
Labor came back with a
powerful ad on the issue of
the day —"personal securi-
ty." On a black screen was a
picture of an Arab wearing a
keffiyeh, and big, white
letters that read: "Gaza In-
side Tel Aviv." The next
shots showed headlines
about the recent spate of ter-
rorist killings, victims on
stretchers, bloodstains on

the sidewalk, and Israelis
saying they were afraid to
walk the streets anymore.
"The personal security of
our citizens has been harm-
ed," said Rabin. "It doesn't
have to be this way."
Then the Likud pulled off
its coup of the week. Despite
the high-level security and
secrecy surrounding produc-
tion of the campaign ads,
which must be finished
hours before airtime, the
Likud guessed, or knew,
what Labor was going to
run, and had its answer
ready.
Minutes after "Gaza In-
side Tel Aviv" aired, the
Likud presented a grim-
looking Moshe Arens saying,
"As you saw, the Labor Par-
ty tried to scare you over the
issue of personal security."
Mr. Arens called it all "lies,"
and "exploitation" of
people's grief and fear, and
began rattling off the Army's
recent accomplishments in
fighting Palestinian terror.
Capping it were headlines of
the many terror killings that
took place when Mr. Rabin
was defense minister, during

the first two and a half years
of the intifada.

Labor hollered foul, claim-
ing that the Likud had
planted a mole in their
ranks. The Likud denied it,
saying they'd simply an-
ticipated what their oppo-
nent was going to broadcast.
Labor finally gave up its ac-
cusations, and the two sides
broke for the Shavuot
weekend to get ready for the
second week of assaults.
No Israeli will admit that
he is swayed by the ads.
(This is not surprising; it
would be unlikely to find
someone willing to say,
"Yes, I have malleable opi-
nions, and I can easily be

manipulated by transparent
propaganda.") Furthermore,
everyone seems to be groan-
ing over the Labor and
Likud signature spots,
which are nearly identical,
showing people of all ages
and colors smiling for all
they're worth, shots of happy
workers in fields, factories
and offices, and plenty of
Israeli flags, while the in-
sipid jingles — "Israel is
Waiting for Rabin" and
"The Likud, That's Right"
— blare on. They look like El
Al commercials, or Israeli
versions of "I'd Like to Buy
the World A Coke."
But the two main parties,
not to mention all the little
left, right and religious ones

ROUND UP

Success Stories
From Israel
For Zena Abebe, an Ethio-
pian immigrant to Israel, at-
tending a small business
management course at ORT-
.Israel's Entrepreneurship
Center led to the opening of
her own hairstyling salon,
the country's only shop spe-
` cializing in black hair care,
in Tel Aviv's central bus sta-
tion.
Karen Anisfeld, who im-
migrated to Israel from Pen-
nsylvania, used the skills
she learned at the En-
trepreneurship Center to
start ACCESS, an interna-
tional public relations firm.
These are two of the many
successful businesses that
got their start through
ORT's Entrepreneurship
.Center, which opened in
1988. ORT-Israel houses the
center in its adult training
facility in Tel Aviv. The pro-
tram offers training for the
entrepreneur in the areas of
management, finance, man-
agerial accounting, business
practices and environment,

pricing, promotion,
marketing and sales.
"Israel's small business
sector is vitally important
because this is where most of
the country's economic in-
novation occurs and where
50 to 60 percent of the coun-
try's new jobs will be form-
ed," said Sandy Isenstein,
national president of Wo-
men's American ORT. "The
ORT-Israel small business
management program, one
of the network's most pop-
ular courses of study, has
contributed monumentally
to the development of en-
trepreneurship in the coun-
try."
ORT also recently estab-
lished projects to provide
training in high-tech fields
at three locations in the
People's Republic of China.
Conducted under the
auspices of China's State
Commission for Technology
and sciences and funded by
the World Bank, the projects
ale training technicians in
computer design and produc-
tion, microcomputer applica-
tions, computer tooling and

Style in Tel Aviv.

agricultural biotechnology
in the cities of Beijing,
Chongming (formerly
Shanghai) and Jilin.

Jewish Boxer
Is Champion
Paris (JTA) — Though not
quite in the best of condition
due to lapses in training,
French Jewish boxer Fabrice
Benichou retained his Euro-
pean featherweight cham-
pionship in a match last

week against British
challenger John Davison.
The first rounds of the
match, which took place in
the northwestern French
city of Metz, were scored for
the 24-year-old Davison. But
Benichou, 27, made a strong
comeback in the eighth
round and was awarded the
match on points.
Sources in the boxing
world said the featherweight
king will put his title on the
line next in a match against
World Boxing Council
champion Paul Hodkinson of
Britain, probably before the
end of the year.

Manual Explains
Laws Of Shabbat
Shabbos in Sign, the first
sign-language handbook to
explain the laws and prac-
tices of Shabbat, has been
published by Our Way, the
National Conference of Syn-
agogue Youth's program for
Jewish deaf and hard of
hearing.
Included are the prayers
for lighting candles, reciting

Kiddush, washing hands,
the blessing over the bread,
and grace after meals.
For information, contact
Our Way-NCSY, 333 Seven-
th Ave., New York, N.Y.
10001.

Call 1-800-
THIS-IS-CUTE
As if the work itself wasn't
demanding enough! Now
mohelim in Connecticut are
having to top one another
when it comes to 800
numbers.
A recent issue of the Con-
necticut Jewish Ledger in-
cludes an ad by Rabbi David
Kedmi of Fairfield, Conn.,
who has his own 800
number: 1-800-4-A-MOREL.
Then comes along Rabbi
Yehoshua Krohn, "from the
Krohn family of professional
mohalim for five genera-
tions." His ad runs on the
same page and includes this
snappy phone number: 1-
800-BABY-BOY.

Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum.

THE DETROIT JEW'