World
ROUNDUP
Wallenberg Alive Longer
Stockholm/JTA — Raoul Wallenberg was
alive after the Soviets reported he had
died in a Moscow prison, according to
new information.
The Associated Press, citing the
Swedish magazine Fokus and two mem-
bers of an American research team
that conducted a 10-year investiga-
tion into Wallenberg's disappearance
in the 1990s, reported on April 1 that
the archives of the Russian Security
Services show that a man identified
as Prisoner No. 7, who was interro-
gated six days after the Soviets claimed
Wallenberg was executed on July 17,
1947, was, "with great likelihood,"
Wallenberg.
The Soviets never produced a death
certificate for Wallenberg or his
remains. There also have been unveri-
fied reports that Wallenberg was seen
years later in Soviet prisons.
The AP reported that in a letter to
Wallenberg's relatives, released for pub-
lication on April 1, researcher Susanne
Berger said that the information needs
to be further verified, "but if indeed
confirmed, the news is the most inter-
esting to come out of Russian archives
in over 50 years."
Wallenberg worked for the Swedish
government in Hungary and used his
position to issue protective passes and
establish safe houses for Jews fleeing the
Nazis, saving 20,000 Jews in Budapest.
He was arrested in Budapest in 1945 by
Soviet secret service agents.
Peters Strong On Israel
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26
April 8 • 2010
Corvesi sti.sititt
Washington — U.S. Rep. Gary Peters,
D-Bloomfield Township, said Israel's
announcement of planned new housing
in the ultra-Orthodox, east Jerusalem
neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo was
ill-timed, but he noted that Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu said the same thing
and apologized for the timing.
"It is now time to move on," Peters
said in a statement the week after
another 1,600 housing units were
announced during U.S. Vice President
Joseph Biden's March 9 visit to
Jerusalem.
"Israel is our most trusted ally,
Jerusalem is its capital and the admin-
istration's continued focus on this
incident and its excessive criticisms of
Israel over this incident is an unneces-
sary distraction from more pressing and
important issues in the region such as
the potential of a nuclear Iran, Peters
said on March 16.
Peters urged the Obama administra-
tion to work with Congress "to finally
enact strong sanctions on Iran until it
stops its pursuit of nuclear weapons."
Off-Shore Drilling
Irks Green Groups
Washington/JTA —
Some Jewish groups
expressed disappoint-
ment and concern over
President Obama's deci-
sion to open U.S. coastal
President
areas to oil exploration.
Obama
While welcoming
the administration's announcement last
week of improved fuel efficiency stan-
dards for cars and the regulation for
the first time of greenhouse gas emis-
sions from automobiles, the Coalition
on the Environment and Jewish Life
(COEJL) and the Reform movement's
Washington arm, the Religious Action
Center, expressed their concerns over the
increased oil drilling.
COEJL, director Sybil Sanchez said in
a statement, "is very concerned that the
President's policy announcement also
includes an expansion of offshore oil and
gas exploration that opens the door to
drilling off our nation's coasts. Efforts to
green our transportation fleet must be
part of a broader strategy to move our
nation toward a clean energy economy.
The Jewish community has long advocat-
ed reducing our dependence on foreign
oil. However, such policies must sustain
our fragile environment."
The Religious Action Center said the
call for increased oil drilling would
increase the risk to marine ecosystems.
"At a time when we need clean energy
alternatives to keep both our environ-
ment and our economy secure, we again
call for an end to — not an expansion
of — drilling in ecologically sensitive
areas:' said the center's director, Rabbi
David Saperstein.
On March 31, the administration
announced four new measures as part
of its energy strategy. In addition to
expanding coast oil and gas exploration,
the plan includes stricter fuel efficiency
standards for cars and trucks to require
35.5 miles per gallon, expansion of the
"green fleet" of federal vehicles and
reducing the military's dependence on
fossil fuels.
Disappointment with the measure,
which was widespread in liberal circles,
also was expressed by the Jewish Renewal
leader Rabbi Arthur Waskow.
"What is wrong with this off-shore
drilling?" Waskow said. "First, it will do
far less, at far greater cost, to make the
U.S. less dependent on 'foreign oil' than
would a sweeping, energetic presidential
campaign for energy efficiency and con-
servation at every level of American life."
Answering
Israel's Critics
The Charge
The Financial Times of London's
International Affairs Editor, David
Gardner, wrote recently that Israel has
been behaving like a rogue state.
The Answer
Israel has one of the most, if not the
most, moral armies in the world and is
a vibrant democracy that guarantees
human rights and whose independent
judiciary provides redress of grievances
to all, even non-citizens.
- Allan Gale
Jewish Community Relations Council
of Metropolitan Detroit
0 April 8, 2010
Jewish Renaissance Media