Insight

Remember
When

Israel's Options

From the pages of the Jewish News
from this week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and
60 years ago.

Ambassador explains menace of RA., Syria and Iran at IDF Friends' dinner.

1993
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president
of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, calls for non-Jews to
be allowed to play a greater part in
Reform synagogue life, especially in
ceremonies like b'nai mitzvah and
baby namings.

HARRY KI RS BAUM

Staff Writer

A

mbassador Alon Pinkus, diehard Yankees fan
and consul general of Israel to New York, gave
up tickets to the victorious Game 7 of the
American League Championship Series against
the Boston Red Sox to share his thoughts on the situa-
tion in Israel at the annual Michigan Friends of the Israel
Defense Forces dinner.
"Ambassador is just a title; it's good for restaurant
reservations," he said jokingly to the crowd of 750 at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek Oct.
16. The rest of his speech wasn't so
funny — listing the Palestinian
Authority, Syria and Iran as Israel's
three major threats.
He called the Palestinian territory
a "lawless, chaotic gang land that
supposedly is being run by a govern-
ment."
"We have a problem with a P.A.
that does not govern. It is Palestin-
ian, but it is not an authority. We
have a serious problem with terror-
ism," he said.
"Terrorism is something that we
Groner
have learned to live with, but terrorism
is not something that we are ready to tolerate as part of
our lives."
Syria is also a threat because it is led by a "moron," he
said, referring to President Bashar al-Assad.
Although Israel can prevail militarily in almost every
category, Syria has been using Hezbollah for 15 years,
including its 7,000 surface-to-surface rockets that can
reach Haifa, he said.
Iran remains the greatest strategic threat to Israel, he
said.
"We have never regarded Iran as an enemy," he said.
"Unfortunately, the regime in Iran defines Israel as an
enemy. Iranians are undergoing a process of nucleariza-
tion. If it goes uninterrupted and unmonitored, they
should have a nuclear device in three to seven years."
Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle
East and its crowning achievement is the IDF, he said.

Four Opt-ions

Looking ahead, Pinkus said Jews "must look in a very
rational, cold, non-ideological way at what would make
the State of Israel strong, what would maintain it as a
Jewish democracy."
"If we are not a predominately Jewish democracy, then
this entire endeavor called Zionism failed," he said. He

10/24

2003

32

Dr. Jacob R. Marcus, director of the
American Jewish Archives in
Cincinnati, will be scholar-in-resi-
dence for the second annual Richard
C. Hertz Institute on Reform
Judaism in Detroit.

Above: Ambassador Alon Pinkus
Below: Israeli soldiers salute during "Hatikvah."

Staff photos by Angie Baan

A Mideast cease-fire appears to be
holding on the 20th day of the Yom
Kippur War.
Temple Beth Jacob of Pontiac
holds a three-day 50th anniversary
celebration.

4.71"k .
Z.4
The Detroit Board of Education
dedicates Harry B. Kiedan
Elementary School on Collingwood,
named after the Detroit jurist.
Rabbi Leon Fram of Temple Israel
is re-elected chairman of the Zionist
Council of Detroit.

•

Leading American ra bis bless a
unique Torah at New York's Idlewild
Airport following its arrival from
Jerusalem, where it was created from
the remnants of 65 scrolls damaged
by the Nazis.

suggested that four options remain: negotiate with
Arafat, re-conquer the West Bank and Gaza, leave things
as they are or separate and build a bigger wall.
"The four options should not allow for any consider-
able cuts in the defense budget," he said.
The event also honored Rabbi Irwin Groner of Shaarey
Zedek for his lifelong commitment to Israel.
"If there were in 1938 an IDF, there wouldn't be
Jewish ghettos in Europe, labor camps, death campS,
concentration camps, crematoria," said Rabbi Groner.
"Because there would be defense, there would be Jews
who were protecting and defending their fellow Jews." ❑

At Kol Nidre services, Dr. B.
Benedict Glazer announces, with the
paying off of its mortgage, Temple
Beth El in Detroit will worship in a
debt-free edifice for the first time in
21 years.
The American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee learns that
3,000 men of the Jewish refugee
group in Nice, France, have been
deported to Germany and Poland.

— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Rabbi Leo M Franklin
Archives of Temple Beth El