The World
Rants
And
Raves
Gore Affirms U.S.
Support Of Israel
New York -- Despite tensions
between Israel and the United
States, Vice President Al Gore
asserted the relationship is
"unshakable, ironclad, eternal
and absolute" and that it "does
not depend upon the peace
process. It transcends the peace
process."
In remarks at the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations
of America centennial dinner
Sunday, Gore said the differences
between the two nations "are
momentary, not permanent?
The United States, he said,
"has an absolute, uncompromising
commitment to Israel's security
and an absolute conviction that
Israel alone must decide the steps
necessary to secure that security.
He said the United States was
the first nation "to recognize
Israel, 50 years ago, 11 minutes
after Israel's founding. And we
will remain a fast friend, forever."
The change at
the top of the
U.S. Holocaust
Museum receives
mixed reaction.
"
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
11
olocaust scholars are rally-
ing around the appoint-
ment of John K. Roth as
first director of the Center
for Advanced Holocaust Studies, the
newly created scholarly arm of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington.
Last week, Roth was attacked for a
1988 Los Angeles Times OpEd article
in which he wrote that the rise of
Israel's Moledet party, which advocates
the "transfer" of Palestinians, echoed
events in Germany in 1938, when
official Nazi policy on Jews focused on
forced emigration.
That led Zionist Organization of
America President Morton Klein to
charge that Roth had "blackened
Israel's name and desecrated the mem-
ory of the 6 million."
Klein demanded that the
Claremont McKenna College scholar
apologize and retract his statements.
Last week, Roth — a philosopher who
began specializing in the Holocaust in
the early 1970s — said that he regret-
ted the 1988 article.
"The essay is one that lends itself to
interpretations different from what I
intended, and I take responsibility for
that," he said in an interview. "If there
was one piece I could blot out of my
extensive publications list forever, this
is the one I would pick."
But that didn't entirely mollify
AjCongress Seeks
Court Review
written 25 books without reading a
Klein, who said that ZOA "accepts his
single one of them? Or a chapter of
somewhat equivocal apology — but
one of them?"
he is apologizing only for what he
Abraham Foxman, executive direc-
on
terms is a misconstrued impression
tor of the Anti-Defamation
this particular article and not
League, pointed to a grow-
for his troubling analogies."
Visitors look at
ing list of targets for Klein's
Michael Berenbaum, a top . photos from
Lithuania at the highly personal attacks,
Holocaust scholar who co-
including folk singer Pete
U.S. Holocaust
authored a book with Roth,
Seeger and reporters Tom
Museum in
blasted Klein for launching
Friedman and Mike
Washington.
his first press-release salvo
Wallace,
and likened the
based only on the short
ZOA leader's approach to
OpEd article, not on Roth's vast schol-
"McCarthyism."
arly work.
But Klein picked up support from
"Mort Klein is wrong on substance,
Rabbi Avi Weiss, the Riverdale, N.Y.,
and he is introducing a tone of vulgar-
activist, who said Roth's appointnient
ity to Jewish life," Berenbaum said.
reflected a dangerous movement at the
"How can he attack a man who has
New York (ITA) — The American
Jewish Congress asked the U.S.
Supreme Court to review a case
involving a Jewish student who
objected to singing and perform
ing Christian songs in a Utah high
school.
The brief, which the
AjCongress filed with the
Atnericans United for Separation
of Church and the State, calls on
the court to examine a Court of
Appeals decision that dismissed
the case of Rachel Bauchman vs.
West High School.
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