Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 10, 2005 Page: 1 of 28
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TJP V59-10 03-10-05 p01-04 3/8/05 8:43 PM Page 1
-e
Thursday, March 10,2005
29 Adar I 5765
Texas Jewish
J Since 1947
Post
Students meet in Austin
to prepare for spring
break in Argentina.
10
Hadassah salutes m p.
Doctors of Distinction, | h
Genecov and Weprin.
Author Susie Fishbein
whips up another
tasty cookbook.
19
VOLUME 59 NO. 10
texasjewishpost.com
NEWS ANALYSIS
Sharon s
budget
hurdle
Budget an obstacle in final
push toward withdrawal
By Leslie Susser
JERUSALEM (JTA) — As plans for
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and
part of the West Bank intensify, its
opponents are banking on one last
throw of the parliamentary dice:
Knesset rejection of the state budget
for 2005.
If the budget is not passed by
March 31, the government will fall,
there will be new elections and dis-
engagement will be deferred —
perhaps even shelved.
With the vote only a few weeks
away, a major battle between Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and the rebels
in his own Likud Party is shaping
up. Thirteen of the rebels say they
will nix the budget. Without their
support, Sharon will not have a
majority.
To make up the shortfall, Sharon
will have to cut a deal with one or
more of the opposition parties.
Over the past few weeks, he has
been wooing a motley crew of dis-
parate candidates: the fervently
Orthodox Shas Party, the secular
Shinui, the left-wing Yahad and the
United Arab List.
The smart money says he will
pull through at the last minute. But
the disengagement opponents will
make it as tough as they can, and
any support he gets from the oppo-
sition will come at a price.
Moreover, the rebel persistence
in trying to thwart the prime min-
ister and even topple his
government could split the Likud.
Before gearing up for the budget
battle, the rebels made one last
effort to foist a national disengage -
see BUDGET p. 25
\
Yeshiva University President Richard Joel applauds benefactor Ronald Gruen after conferring an honorary degree,
as Ethel Gruen (center) looks on. See Harriet Gross" related column on p. 26. Photo: Steve Israel
Max Fisher dearf of Jewish life,
dies at 96 as community mourns
By Rachel Pomerance
NEW YORK (JTA) — A defining
moment in the life of Max Fisher,
the son of immigrants who became
a Jewish icon, came in a meeting
with the former President Eisen-
hower in 1965.
As head of the United Jewish
Appeal at the time, Fisher met
Eisenhower to ask him to address
the UJA on the 20th anniversary of
the liberation of the Nazi concentra-
tion camps. But during that
meeting, he learned he would
change history.
Eisenhower told Fisher he
regretted forcing Israel out of the
Sinai when he was president during
the 1956 Arab-Israeli War.
"Max, if I had a Jewish adviser
working for me, I doubt I would
have handled the situation the same
way," Eisenhower is quoted as saying
in Fisher's biography, "Quiet
Diplomat," written by Peter Golden.
"That's the day that Max figured
out what he was going to do. He
wanted to be that adviser," Golden
told JTA in a phone interview.
Fisher, about whom superlatives
are routinely used to describe his
power and leadership in the Amer-
ican Jewish community, died last
Thursday at his home in Detroit. He
was 96.
Hours after his death, e-mail
messages made the rounds of major
Jewish organizations and activists to
alert them of the death of a man
who not only led many major
Jewish organizations but also exer-
cised enormous political power,
personally advising every Repub-
lican president since Eisenhower.
"The State of Israel has lost a true
friend, who was one of its greatest
supporters," Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said in his cabinet
meeting Sunday. "To a large
degree, it is due to Max Fisher's
V
Max Fisher in September 2001.
Photo: Robert A. Cumins/UJC
activism that approximately one
million new immigrants came to
Israel from Ethiopia and the former
Soviet Union in the 1990s," he said,
referring to Fisher's work to priori-
tize aliyah for the Jewish Agency for
Israel after the fall of the iron cur-
tain.
"I dubbed him the 'dean' of the
community, and he certainly was
until his last day," said Malcolm
Hoenlein, executive vice chairman
of the Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish Organiza-
tions.
see FISHER p. 3
$1.00
Renew Torah
covenant,
educator pleads
By Steve Israel
Staff Writer
DALLAS - Yeshiva University Pres-
ident Richard Joel appealed last
week for a return to Torah-based
living in the face of "the most pro-
foundly Jewishly ignorant
generation of young people, prob-
ably, since we left Egypt."
Speaking at a convocation in
honor of Yeshiva benefactors
Ronald and Ethel Gruen of Dallas,
Joel said young people can achieve
purposeful, meaningful lives by
keeping the ancient Jewish covenant
with God.
"To me, what Yeshiva University is
about, what the Orthodox commu-
nity is about, what the Jewish people
are about, is that we are here for a
purpose," he said. "We entered into a
deal with God. We're a covenantal
people. The deal was that if we agree
to follow the laws and the values of
the Torah, God will allow us to be a
light unto the nations by enabling us
to partner with God and with people
of goodwill to advance civilization."
Joel told an audience of 300 at
Congregation Shaare Tefilla that he's
concerned that recent generations of
Jews "haven't immersed themselves
in the sacred story of our people that
becomes part of our eternal narra-
tive... and if they don't know the
story, they can't own the story."
Many seem to assume that "the
essence of the Jew" is transmitted by
osmosis from generation to gener-
ation, leaving today's generation
"educationally bereft and yet
hungry," the educator said.
"We celebrate education because
we hope in the future. We have con-
fidence in our story. Our children
want lives that make sense. They seek
meaning. They want to matter. And
we know - from whatever corner of
the tent we come from - that our tra-
dition, our story, and our people and
our purpose, offer that light of
meaning to others," he said.
Ronald Gruen, in accepting his
see GRUEN p. 2
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 10, 2005, newspaper, March 10, 2005; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188070/m1/1/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .