0.0: . *:**4...:A. HEALTHY' AND HAPPY NEW YEAR Media Monitor UNBALANCED page 39 • To All Our Friends, Families & Clients World Wide Financial Thanks Metropolitan Detroit's Jewish Community For Helping Us Make Mortgage Banking History! WORLD WIDE FINANCIAL THE DETRO Southeast Michigan's Leader In Mortgage Lending 647.1199 1533 North Woodward, Suite 140 Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48304 gore, Percy and Fulbright are very reluctant to discuss the magazine or their role in it. Mr. Kilgore seemed of- fended by recent questions whether he considered the magazine balanced and re- ferred a reporter to Mr. Cur- tiss. Mr. Percy said a hearing impairment made it difficult to discuss the magazine over the phone, but he had no problem answering any questions not directly relat- ed to Washington Report. Similarly, Mr. Fulbright said, "I am an old man not really involved in the com- mittee." Only Mr. Curtiss agreed to be interviewed and he said he was puzzled by the others' responses. He said Mr. Percy and Mr. Fulbright are important members of the policy committee and made recommendations from time to time. He said he could not explain their re- luctance to discuss the mag- azine or their participation in it. Mr. Curtiss defended the magazine, stating he be- lieved it was "balanced" and those who criticize it have not read it carefully, imply- ing that it contains some neutral or pro-Israel mate- rial. He explained that he con- sidered the mainstream media pro-Israel and Wash- ington Report plays an im- portant role in countering what he called "negative coverage of Arab countries and Arab-bashing." "There is no point in printing what we read in the daily papers," he said in de- fense of his magazine Mr. Curtiss said the mag- azine has a press run of 40,000 and denied receiving any "Arab money," other than subscriptions from in- dividuals who may be Arabs. He said the maga- zine is financed primarily through subscriptions. The editor admitted that he addressed the Liberty Lobby's Board of Policy Con- vention in September 1987. Liberty Lobby is identified by the Anti-Defamation League as the most active anti-Semitic organization in the United States. When asked if he believed the Lobby would invite someone who is "balanced" on the Middle East, given its own position, Mr. Curtiss said he was "booed" sever- al times by the audience. What's troubling is that Washington Report's politics represent career foreign service and State Depart- ment bureaucrats. Many a president has been frus- trated in countering the in- fluence of these officials. ❑ OW Yiddish Program Set In Moscow New York (JTA) — A new Yiddish studies program has been launched in Moscow, sponsored by Touro College of New York and the Foun- dation for the Advancement of Yiddish Studies of Jerusa- lem. The program is designed to prepare men and women with intensive training in classical and modern Heb- rew and Yiddish texts with the aim of preparing them to serve as teachers of Yiddish language and literature in Russia and Israel. David Neiman, who served for 25 years as professor of Jewish theology at Boston College, was named the first instructor in the program, which opened this month with an enrollment of 50. Mr. Neiman will be follow- ed by a contingent of academicians and rabbis from Israel and the United States, each of whom will devote a month as a vol- unteer instructor. The new program will be part of the curriculum of Touro's Moscow center of Jewish studies. Overall enrollment in Touro's Moscow center has increased by 100 students over last year, bringing the total number to 350, Touro announced. The increase has doubled the number of classes and ex- tended school hours.