Jewry's Role in
Human Affairs
Department's Office of Special
Investigations, which investigates war
crimes stemming from the Holocaust.
Faith-Based Plan
Okay, poll shows
Washington/JTA — Most Americans
support President Bush's plan to fund
faith-based charities, but they have
reservations about government
involvement in religion, according to a
poll released Tuesday.
The poll, cosponsored by the Pew
Research Center for the People and the
Press, also found that most respondents
do not think religious groups outside the
Judeo-Christian tradition such as
Muslims and Buddhists should get funds.
N an Sentenced
For Shul Attack
Bonn/JTA — A German court jailed a
Moroccan-born man for more than
two years for an arson attack on a syn-
agogue last October.
A lawyer for Khalid Zaouaghi, a
German resident, said April 4 his
client "lost his self-control" after
watching a television report about the
death of a Palestinian youth in the
Middle East conflict.
African Slavery
Spotlighted
Washington/JTA — The U.S. Reform
movement wants to draw attention
during the Passover holiday to the
issue of slavery in Africa.
The Religious Action Center in
Washington has distributed readings
and prayers to be read during the
Jewish holiday of freedom and asks
that people commit themselves to
work on behalf of slaves in Sudan and
Mauritania.
`Bread Police'
Nab Offenders
Tel Aviv/JTA — Israeli "bread police"
are fining Tel Aviv restaurants that serve
bread during the Passover holiday.
One legislator said a law enacred in
1993 is being misapplied because it
deals only with shops displaying
bread products in their windows, not
with those serving such products to
customers. But an official with the
fervently Orthodox Shas Party, which
controls the ministry responsible for
enforcement, disagreed: "This law
exists to safeguard the Jewish charac-
ter of the state, and we intend to
enforce it."
SOLVING MYSTERIES OF MAN AND MATTER
From human sciences to the hard sciences of space and cosmology, Jewish
contributors have made their influences felt. A rich heritage of intellect, imagination
and curiosity motivates the many who probe our world and beyond for revelations
about ourselves and our place in the universe. Some who are not as well known as
they should be deserve attention and honor.
U.N. To Repair
Sarajevo Haggadah
FRANZ BOAS
(1858-1942) b. Minden, Germany Anthropologist
Affectionately called "Papa Boas" by his students, the
gentle and kindly scientist was the seldom disputed
father of American anthropology. During forty years of
pioneering field work, his findings and teachings
established anthropology as an academic discipline
in our nation's colleges and universities. He further
had a major impact on the core principles of anthropol-
ogy the world over. Margaret Mead was among his protégés.
The former professor of cultural geography at the University of Berlin
emigrated to the U.S. in 1887. Soon after, Boas began studying coastal Eskimos and
Kwakiutl Indians in Canadian British Columbia. Other expeditions took him to
Mexico and Puerto Rico. Applying strict statistical analysis and scientific methods
in researching language, race, folklore and art, he charted the influences of
environment on cultural life.
In his view, neither geography nor race was primary in molding human
societies; rather, thoughts and behaviors were dominant in shaping culture. He
served for 37 years as Columbia University's first professor of anthropology and
was the curator of ethnology at New York's American Museum of Natural History
from 1901 to 1905.
The prolific author was also instrumental in rescuing many Jewish
intellectuals from Nazi oppression. Armed with his anthro-pological insights, the
teacher and humanist soundly rebuffed the notion of racial superiority and the
practice of racism in any form.
New York/JTA — International
experts plan to repair the famed
Sarajevo Haggadah, which dates back
to the 14th century.
A U.N. official made the announce-
ment after three experts examined the
manuscript.
El Al Scales Back
Europe Flights
Jerusalem/JTA — El Al Israel Airlines
said it will stop flying to Vienna and
will offer flights to Copenhagen only
in the peak summer months.
In addition, El Al will reduce the
number of its flights to Manchester,
England. "These routes are not profitable
for us," an airline spokeswoman said.
Seminary Hires
Acting President
New York/JTA — The Academy for
Jewish Religion, a nondenominational
rabbinic and cantorial seminary with
campuses in New York and Los
Angeles, hired a new acting president
who is expected to be approved as per-
manent president in the coming
months.
Rabbi David Greenstein, who was
ordained at the academy, but holds
additional graduate degrees in Judaic
studies from Yeshiva University and
New York University, will replace
Rabbi Shohama Wiener. Founded in
1956, the AJR has 100 students.
IDF Leaves
Trees Untouched
Jerusalem/JTA — Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon instructed the
Israel Defense Force not to uproot
trees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
Army Radio reported.
According to Sharon's directive, if
the IDF determines Palestinian gun-
men are using trees for cover, it should
prune the lower branches and not cut
down the whole tree, as the IDF has
been doing.
ARNO PENZIAS
(1933-) b. Munich, Germany Astrophysicist As a
young man, he fled Hitler's Germany with his parents,
settled in New York City and earned a doctorate from
Columbia University in 1962. Penzias then joined Bell
Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.
Within ten years he was named director of Bell's radio
research unit and by 1981 rose to the post of vice
president of research at the laboratory.
The years between his appointments were filled with accomplishments,
including several important developments in the field of communications
technology. But his most notable discovery led to a 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics,
shared with two others. In hand with an associate, Penzias confirmed the widely
believed theory of how the universe began--with the Big Bang. He and his
colleague puzzled over radio wave noise seemingly coming from within a detector
they built, a makeshift antenna for satellite communications. Unexpectedly, as it
later appeared, the sound was actually issuing from deep space: uniform, low-level
static from all directions. They had stumbled on "residual background radiation"
whose source was left-over energy from the primordial explosion which created our
universe perhaps thirteen billion years ago.
Penzias continued to investigate matter and energy pervading the cosmos,
including galactic radiation and intergalactic hydrogen--revealing the presence of
many interstellar molecules and rare isotopes.
-Saul Stadtmauer
Thomas Huxley (1825-95), the non-Jewish, English biologist was an internationally
respected author and lecturer. From his writings on theology and philosophy came
this acknowledgement of Judaism's gift to the issue of national responsibility:
Down to modern times, no State has had a constitution in which the interests of
the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties, so much more
than privileges of rulers, are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in
Deuteronomy and in Leviticus. Nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare
of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly
laid down.
COMMISSION FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF JEWISH HISTORY
Walter & Lea Field, Founders/Sponsors
Irwin S. Field & Harriet F. Siden, Chairpersons
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