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Discowry
Rings A Bell?
You Bet!
We've got company.
The Detroit-Windsor casino gambling dilemma is
playing itself out on the rocky border between Eilat,
Israel, and Taba, Egypt.
A stone's throw away from the Princess Hotel in
Eilat, where hundreds of Missionaires stayed last
week, there is a gauntlet of checkpoints manned
by Israeli and Egyptian customs officials.
Beyond barbed wire and modular duty-free shops
is the Taba Hilton, site of the popular gambling casi-
no. Show your passport; check your camera; convert
your shekelim back to dollars and voila — you're in.
The room features neon slot machines, a few black-
jack tables, roulette and poker. Overall, the opera-
tion is small and cramped; but many Eilat hotel
owners are envious. Growing tourism makes gam-
bling a potentially lucrative business, and they want
to cash in.
However, gambling is illegal in Israel. Ongoing
debate over the industry might prompt the Knesset
to change its laws, but currently some residents sup-
port the ban.
"The government of Israel is not ready to allow
gambling for all of Israel," says Eilat resident David
Schor. "Whatever goes with crime goes with gam-
bling."
Sound familiar?
03
There is no dearth of physicians on
the Miracle Mission, according to the
Jewish Federation officials.
Luckily, at the poolside that day
was Dr. Joseph Salama, an ortho-
pedic surgeon who works at Provi-
dence Hospital and runs a private
practice in Southfield.
Jerusalem, Israel — Sonia and Sam Kude-
Mrs. Kudewitz was taken to Yousef Tal
witz are survivors in more ways than one.
They lived through Holocaust horrors Hospital in Eilat and Dr. Salama super-
and immigrated from Poland to America vised while she received X-rays. He helped
in 1946. And last week, on the first day of set her shoulder and put it in a sling.
Miracle Mission II, Mrs. Kudewitz slipped "When we get home, I'll see her again."
Dr. Salama says.
near the hotel pool in the Israel re-
Coincidentally, Dr. Salama
sort city of Eilat. She lost her foot-
Ab ove:
had
seen Mrs. Kudewitz before
ing on a bridge that arched steeply Sonia and Sam
—
and
her husband, Sam. It was
Kudew itz with
from one side of the pool to the oth-
and Larry years ago, at his wedding.
Eleanor
er.
Jac kier.
The Kudewitzes live in Flori-
When her daughter, Eleanor
da,
in the same complex as Dr.
Jackier, wife of Mission Chairman
Be low:
Salama's
parents. They be-
Dr. J oseph
Larry Jackier, saw her mother in
friended
the
elder Salamas and
Salama.
and
Rita
distress, she summoned a doctor.
were in attendance when the
doctor and his wife, Rita, took
their vows. "It's a small world,"
Dr. Salama says.
As for Mrs. Kudewitz, she ad-
mitted she was in pain but con-
tinued her
trip. Although she's been to Is-
rael previously, this time is par-
ticularly special.
"My husband and I came here
with my daughter and we want
to stay," she says. "That's my
strong will. Believe me, I haven't
slept one hour" (since she broke
her shoulder).
Missionaire Trip
Is A Bit Fractured
—
PHOTO BY RE ICHARD SHEINWALD
RICHARD SH EINWALD
Eilat, Israel
Half the
Missionaires stayed at the Princess Hotel in Eilat.