R oun ti p
All the news that fits__ / Compiled by Elizabeth Applebaum)
The Round-Up's Revenge
OU READ IT HERE FIRST! Sev-
eral weeks ago, The Round-Up
brought you important news
about MUFON, the Mutual UFO
Network Inc., and its commit-
ment to finally, at long last,
prove the existence of extrater-
restrial beings.
And you laughed, didn't you?
Well, now it appears NASA
scientists have finally taken this
whole UFO craze seriously! And they're
w
Shalom, Big Apple
ill Hebrew soon be heard
on the floor of the New
York Stock Exchange?
Next month, the first U.S. mutual
fund invested in Israeli companies will
begin trading on the New York Stock
Exchange, according to a report in the
New York Times.
The First Israel Fund will be in-
s
doing it with the aid of an Israeli sci-
entist.
NASA recently initiated a research
project called SETT (Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence),
which has a 25-man team, only
two members of which are not
Americans. Among the two: Dr.
Michael Ashkenazi, an anthro-
pologist with Ben-Gurion Uni-
versity's department of
behavioral sciences.
vested in publicly traded securities on
the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (70 per-
cent) and in high-risk, unlisted pri-
vate companies (30 percent).
The U.S. managing firm for the
fund is BEA Associates, with under-
writers Merrill Lynch, Prudential Se-
curities, and Donaldson, Lufkin &
Jenrette.
Russian Family's Aliyah
Focus Of Children's Book
hvut Ami, the Jerusalem-based
organization which helps Soviet
Jews learn more about Judaism,
has produced a children's book de-
scribing the aliyah of two young girls.
Yanna and Martha Come Home fol-
lows the lives of a Russian family plan-
ning to immigrate to Israel. The move
is at first difficult for the family's two
girls, who are hesitant to leave behind
their familiar life in Russia. Yet they feel
at home upon settling in Israel, where
they change their names to Chana and
Miriam.
The purpose of the book is to 'fos-
ter understanding between Russian im-
migrants and children in Israel and
North America and ease the aliyah of
the youngest new arrivals," a Shvut Ami
spokesman said.
For information about Yanna and
Marina, contact the American Friends
of Shvut Ami, 156 Fifth Ave. Suite 522,
New York, N.Y. 10010, or call (212)
255-6144.
m
Just Fork Over The
Bucks, Comrade
G
of any old letters from Leon Trot-
sky in your basement? If so,
don't just leave them there to sit
and rot with your 1960s love beads and
that brown-and-pink, handmade bowl
from Aunt Flora.
Correspondence between the for-
mer Communist leader and artist Frida
Kahlo recently sold at Swann Galleries
in New York, at prices ranging from
$475 to $3,200. The letters were writ-
ten during Trotsky's exile in Mexico in
the late 1930s.
Earlier this summer, Swann host-
ed a Hebraica and Judaica sale. Among
the items auctioned off: a 1744 Italian
manuscript women's prayer book that
sold for $990; a 1924 watercolor,
Mother and Child, by Reuven Rubin,
for $4,180; a 1930 Polish silver etrog
container, which was sold for $3,520;
a 1920s English illustrated phonograph
record with Yiddish songs, $880; and
six albums of cigarette cards from
1930s Palestine, which went for $825.
An Entry Fee
To Auschwitz
srael is appealing to Lech Walesa to
abandon his plans to charge entrance
fees to the Auschwitz and Birkenau
death camps.
In a letter to the Polish president,
Knesset Speaker Shevach Weiss said
that nothing could justify charging vis-
itors to the camps, which he called
memorials to the most tragic crimes in
history.
Mr. Weiss also discussed the issue
with Poland's ambassador to Israel, ac-
cording to a report in the Jewish Press.
New York Cosmetic Line
Created For Shabbat Use
ove over, Helena Rubenstein.
It's time for some serious Re-
flections.
A New York-based company, Re-
flections Cosmetics, has come up with
the answer for observant women who
wish to use makeup on Shabbat. (The
problem with regular makeup lies in the
fact that it is spread when applied, which
is not permitted on the Sabbath.)
"Many women I've met throughout
the years would keep Shabbat in every
way except when it came to giving up
wearing makeup," said Reflections
founder Sylvia Hamowy, who has been
in the business for 15 years. "I finally
decided to do something about it."
The powder-based Shabbat line,
which took six years to develop, has
been approved by Rabbi Avrohom Blu-
menkrantz, head of Kollel Anshei
Chemed and rabbi of Bais Med rash
Ateris Yisroel in Far Rockaway, N.Y.
The makeup is hypoallergenic and
comes complete with instructions for
Shabbat use. The items available include
eye shadow, blush, lipsticks, founda-
tion and under-eye concealer.
Reflections also offers a full line of
kosher-for-Passover cosmetics.
To place an order, call Reflections
Cosmetics, 1-800-733-LIPS (5477).
Files Shed New Light
On Murdered Poets
or years, mystery surrounded
the exact fate of 24 Jewish writ-
ers, actors and intellectuals mur-
dered at the behest of Josef Stalin.
Most were said to have been shot on
Aug. 12, 1952, on what has come to
be known as "The Night of the Mur-
dered Poets."
Now, newly opened KGB files re-
veal exactly what happened to the
men. Twelve of them were in fact
killed that night — but another 10
died during interrogations or while in
detention.
"It was a political decision, very
much part of the Cold War," Jewish
Theological Seminary history pro-
fessor David Fishman said of the
killings. Many of the writers and ac-
tors had had contact with the West.
"Also, the Soviet policy toward Is-
rael had changed. By late 1948, the
Soviet Union was moving more and
more toward the Arab camp." Stalin
F
likely feared the men would "rally for
the 'enemy country,' " Dr. Fishman
said.
Itzik Fefer propagated that notion.
According to the newly discovered
files, Fefer — author of the well-
known poem "Ikh bin a Yid" — was
a KGB informant. Fefer even turned
on his colleagues during the trials, in-
sisting he and the others had been
spies for Israel. Fellow writer Peretz
Markish was the most adamant that
the men had not been spies. Both
Markish and Fefer were among those
executed on Aug. 12.
Though much of the information
found on the murdered poets was
contained in files uncovered follow-
ing the collapse of the Soviet Union,
that is not true of all the material.
In 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev ordered an internal investi-
gation of the Stalin era. The material
found was published.
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