News Digest

Canfield, Paddock and Stone with
William Lash, United States assistant sec- .
retary of commerce.
Among the specific deals made at the
forum, Axiolog, a Detroit-based Internet
shipping company, arranged to open an
office in Jordan, which will initially
employ 15 people.
U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak,
a panelist in the session "Competitive
Outlook and Growth Opportunities for
the U.S. and Arab World Economies,"
stressed the importance of human factors
— equal rights, education, voting rights
and the like — in the development of a
region's potential.
According to a United Nations report,
human and social capital explain 64 per-
cent of growth performance, he said.
When asked what was achieved by the
conference, Levin said it was a useful
forum to "exchange ideas about both the
opportunities and challenges for eco-
nomic growth, including the expansion
of trade and undertaking of necessary
internal reforms."
• What can supporters of Israel take
away from the forum? "The main focus
of the forum was economic growth and
integration but that cannot effectively
occur unless there is an end to violence
and basic instability in the region," he
said.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas,
ranking member of the immigration,
border security and claims judiciary sub-
committee, said Detroit and Michigan
have a unique role "with their large Arab
population and well-respectedJewish
community."
During a recent visit to Israel, Lee said,
she was moved by the "greatest sense of

hope."
The honorary chair of Women's
Partnership for Peace in the Middle East,
an ecumenical group formed in Oslo this
May that includes Jewish Israeli and
Palestinian women, Lee called women
"the generators of peace" and is particu-
larly interested in women-owned and
minority-owned businesses getting
involved in that region.

Hammering Out A Peace

In an interview during the forum,
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said
America's — and Detroit's — Jewish
communities had nothing to fear from
the building of stronger bonds between
the United States and the Arab countries.
"I think it's the opposite," the mayor
said. "By developing these relationships,
we can help relieve the tensions interna-
tionally, as well as those at home.
"We saw it after 9-11, how the Jewish
community and the Arab community
rallied together. We here in metro
Detroit can be an example for the rest of
the world.
"But, unless we can really figure out
how to make the Arabs and the Israelis
sit down and hammer out a peace, it
will prevent me, and it will prevent all of
us, from working together as effectively
as we can."

Anti-Semitism
Priority For French

Fund Honors
Slain Doctor

Paris/JTA — France's prime minister
told a group of Jews that fighting anti-
Semitism is an "absolute priority" for
his government.
At a Sept. 24 ceremony marking the
60th anniversary of the founding of
the CRIF umbrella organization of
French Jews, held at the prime minis-
ter's official residence in Paris, Jean-
Pierre Raffarin said, "Even if the num-
ber of anti-Semitic acts has fallen, it is
not enough.
"Because even if one anti-Semitic
act were to be committed in France,
we would still be facing an unaccept-
able situation."
Raffarin described the CRIF Jewish
group, which represents France's esti-
mated 600,000 Jews, as "often
demanding but always indispensable."

Jerusalem/JTA --- An Israeli hospital
launched a fund in honor of an
emergency-room physician killed last
month in a suicide bombing.
The American Committee for
Shaare Zedek Medical Center in
Jerusalem created the fund to honor
Dr. David Applebaum, a U.S.-born
physician who was among seven peo-
ple, including his daughter, killed in
a Sept. 9 attack in Jerusalem.
Applebaum directed Shaare
Zedek's department of emergency
medicine. More information on the
fund is available at www.acsz.org or
at (800) 346-1592.

`La Juive'
Opera Revived

New York/JTA — An opera banned
by Hitler about a heroic Jewish
woman will get a second life in New
York.
The 19th century opera The Jewess
by French composer Jacques Halevy is
about a Jewish woman boiled in oil
for refusing to convert to Christianity.
It will debut Nov. 6 at the
Metropolitan Opera, 70 years after
Hitler banned it.

❑

U.S. To Revoke
Guard's Citizenship?

Above: Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi
Arabia's foreign minister:

. Technicians from Egypt State
Television prepare to film a commentator:

Washington/JTA — The Justice
Department is asking a judge to revoke
the citizenship of a former Nazi concen-
tration camp guard living in Wisconsin.
The department's Office of Special
Investigations says Josias Kumpf, 78,
served as a guard at Sachsenhausen near
Berlin during the early years of World
War II. He later was transferred to
Trawniki in Nazi-occupied Poland,
where 7,000 Jews were shot to death in
a single day.
The government alleges that Kumpf
entered the United States in 1956 after
lying about his past and became a citi-
zen eight years later. He admitted his
role at Trawniki to Justice Department
officials earlier this year.

Prague Synagogue
Open Again

Prague/JTA — Prague's Pinkas
Synagogue reopened following one of
the most complex renovation projects
ever undertaken by the city's Jewish
community.
The synagogue, one of the best-pre-
served Jewish sites in Prague, was seri-
ously damaged nearly 14 months ago
when water surged through under-
ground channels from the nearby Vltava
River during extensive flooding in the
Czech Republic.
"The synagogue is symbolic because
there are 350 years of Prague's history
here," Jewish Museum historian Arno
Parik said during a news briefing at the
synagogue. "The reopening of the
Pinkas Synagogue is important for those
young people who are descendants of
those who died in the Holocaust and for
the many people from around the world
who want to come and see the names"
of those killed, which are inscribed on
the synagogue's walls.

Anti-Hate Program
In Germany

Berlin/JTA — An American Jewish anti-
bias program will be implemented in
three Berlin high schools.
After three years of preparation, the
American Jewish Committee on Sept. 29
announced the launching of Hands
Across the Campus, a program tested on
American college campuses and now
geared toward racism, xenophobia and
anti-Semitism in Germany.

Staff photos by Diana Lieberman

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2003

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