Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 11, 1987 Page: 2 of 20
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Reaction To Pollard Reports
the cutting edge
BY EDWIN BLACK
Senior American Jewish organization leaders in
Jerusalem are dismayed and shocked by the
vagueness of the two Pollard reports, and by the
callous attitude of Israeli leaders toward Mk Ab-
ba Evan's Knesset investigation. As a result, they
are calling for a dramatic change in the relation-
ship between Israel and American Jewry.
Early last week, communal leaders here were
so disheartened by the reports, they all avoided
media comment,'"hoping the matter would sim-
ply go away,” as one communal leader ex-
plained. Indeed, both the Knesset investigation
led by Eban, and the cabinet probe conducted
by eminent attorney Yehoshua Rotenstreich,
were devoid of detail and revelation.
The published findings of the Rotenstreich
panel were so sketchy, the entire public report
barely filled three typewritten pages. A copy of
the Prime Minister's letter of appointment was
appended to fill space. The public portion of the
Eban sub-committee report wasn't much longer
and was dominated by the dissenting positions'
of its own members. Privately, Shimon Samuels,
Jerusalem director for the American Jewish
Committee, admitted what many of his
colleagues were saying: "Clearly, these two
reports can be seen as little more than a
whitewash of a whitewash.”
American Jewish leaders, at first hoped they
could simply endure a brief awkward silence on
the matter. But an entirely new dimension was
added within hours of the Knesset report’s
release, foreign Minister Shimon Peres and
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, both singled out
for amorphous "ministerial responsibility,”
launched a vicious retaliation campaign against
both Eban and his report.
The anti-Eban smear campaign reached its
peak at a highly publicized Tel Aviv Labour rally
in which Rabin, speaking from the lectern,
mocked Eban as a throng of party members
laughed and sneered. When Eban rose to defend
himself, he was booed and heckled by his
colleagues.
Nonetheless, Eban demanded that he not be
attacked by his party for "using his judgment."
He added that such conduct undercut "the
assumption that we have no problem with
tolerance and freedom in Israel." But then Peres
rose to belittle Eban's remarks as "melodrama,”
and declared that Eban was "pitiful.”
All the while, Rabin sported what one young
Labourite termed, "a tremendous smirk.”
"Rabin knows where Eban is going to be the
next time party members are slated for elec-
tion,” the young Labourite predicted.
In attacking Eban and his report, the two
Labour leaders crushed the last possible hope
that Israel's twin Pollard investigations might be
what American public, press and governmental
opinion demanded: a credible accounting.
"Instead,” declares David daymen, Jerusalem
director of the American Jewish Congress,
"Peres and Rabin let petty party politics super-
sede the national interest. By holding the reports
up to disdain, they discredited Israel’s main an-
swer to the Pollard affair.”
One of the big three Jewish organizational
leaders in Israel, speaking on condition of
anonymity, lamented, "This is not only a
whitewash, but the Israeli people see the ob-
scentiy beneath it. The Israeli people and press
now see this government as attempting to ab-
dicate any responsibility for its actions. There is
no unity and no national coalition. And it will
have a cumulative effect as it erodes public trust
in its institutions.”
The consensus among the communal directors
is that Israel’s national leadership is becoming
injurious to the state. As such, American Jewry is
obligated to assume a new vitality in the Israeli-
Diaspora Jewry dialog, one in which American
Jewish precepts of justice, democracy and
pluralism are granted greater weight. "The time
is long past when Israeli leaders are seen in
idealistic terms," concedes Harry Wall,
Jerusalem director of the Anti-Defamation
League. "Now is the time to find a middle
ground that re-defines American Jewry's
relationship with Israel,” he continues. "We
need a new relationship with honest, mutually
respected give and take between the two com-
munities.”
Specific ideas are beginning to emerge.
"Diaspora Jewry needs to act as its. own lobby
here,” declares Shimon Samuels of the
American Jewish Committee. "If we are going to
retard the ever widening gulf between Diaspora
Jewry and Israel,” Samuels suggests, "and if we
are to prevent such mishaps (as the Pollard af-
fair) in the future, then we must create our own
hasbara in Israel, actually educate Israeli
leaders, and if necessary even counteract their
actions for the good of the State. Yes, if that
means form a lobby here, as dirty a word as that
is, let’s form a lobby to make the Israeli power
structure understand the damage such mishaps
create."
Samuels continues, "If you accept that there
is an ever growing symbiotic interdependence,
and that the Diaspora needs Israel for every
possible reason, then you must ask, what is the
other side of the symbiotic relationship? What
does Israel need Diaspora Jewry for? Surely more
than donations. We need a greater presence
here. Working with and through their Israeli
counterparts, they can think through the effect
of such situations as the way the Pollard affair
was and is being handled.”
As radical as that concept may seem, it is
already assuming shape. During recent months,
American Jewish communal officials have been
far more outspoken to Israeli leadership. This
trend reached a new vitality in late winter amid
revelations that Pollard handlers Rafi Eitan and
Aviem Sella had received distinguished gover-
nmental promotions. A delegation of
organizational officials led by Wall of the ADL
repeatedly lobbied both the Prime Minister and
Foreign Minister to act responsibly and decisively
in the Irangate, South Africa trade and Pollard
affairs.
This trend culminated last March in the un-
precedented emergency mission of ADL
president Bert Levinson and associate national
director Abe Foxman who publicly demanded
state inquiries into the Pollard affair. Even
before the ADL mission arrived, Israel announced
that two inquiries were convening. But then,
Levinson shocked Israeli officials from the steps
of the Foreign Ministry by publicly warning
against a whitewash, and demanding that Eitan
and Sella be relieved of their promotions.
Malcolm Hoenlein and Morris Abrams of the
Presidents Conference followed a week later ver-
balizing many of the same sentiments, albeit in
private, and adding their request for an embargo
on arms sales to South Africa. Peres announced
the embargo the next day.
Since March, heightened American represen-
tation - especially on Pollard —has being felt in
Jerusalem. The pressure has not been ignored.
Aviem Sella eventually resigned his prestigious
Tel Nof Airbase command. And Trade Minister
Ariel Sharon is still being approached - even if
unsuccessfully - about relieving Rafi Eitan from
his chairmanship of Israel's largest enterprise,
Israel Chemicals. "Let’s face it,” declares one
key American Jewish official here, "the lobby
already exists."
Asked if such "lobbying” would not be angrily
rebuffed by Israeli leaders as "interference,”
Samuels replies, "What does interference mean?
Diaspora Jewry intervenes every time it makes a
donation, and then says they want a say in the
disbursement of that donation. But that is exac-
tly what is happening now.”
Wall adds, "The old adage that so long as
American Jews don’t come and live in Israel, and
don’t serve in the army, and therefore don’t have
to pay the price of mistaken advice, is wearing a
little thin. This last year - with its unending list
of scandals - has simply been a watershed in
relations between American Jewry dnd Israel.
Diaspora Jews have simply lost their naivete
about Israel, and that is not an unhealthy
phenomenon. Israel is too important to American
Jewry to continue to allow its leaders to con-
tinue shooting themselves in the foot.”'
The notion of an arrogant, bumbling Israeli
hierarchy incessantly "shooting itself in the
foot" has become a leading image here. "It’s
happening so often,” says one of the top three
organizational directors, "soon Israel won't have
a leg to stand on. Okay, so American Jewry has
been providing the crutches. But then Israeli
leaders send in the termites. Soon American
Jewry will become so turned off about the ab-
sence of reform, they will just give up. I am per-
sonally out of answers, I'm tired of making ex-
cuses for Israel.”
Communal representatives here, whether
pronounced or uncommitted on the so-called
American Jewish lobby in Israel, point to elec-
toral reform as a leading focus. Israeli leaders
awed by the spectacle of the Eban humiliation
and the utter powerlessness of his investigating
committee are risking retaliatory discipline from
their own parties to publicly support an electoral
reform movement.
"So long as we don’t have a personal con-
stituency electoral system,” insists MK Eliahu
Ben-Elissar, who served as Likud member of the
Eban committee, "no Knesset committee can
act like a U.S. Senate investigating committee.”
MK Simcha Dinitz, former ambassador to
Washington and a Labour member of the Eban
committee, feels, "This is the single most impor-
tant reform Israel needs today. Without that, no
other reform is possible. And no Israeli leader
will feel responsible for his actions.”
• • • •
Edwin Black is the author of The Transfer Agreement: The
Untold Story of the Secret Pact Between the Third Reich and
Jewish Palestine (Macmillan), winner of the Carl Sandburg
Award for the best nonfiction of 1984 and nominated for the
Pulitzer Prize. His weekly syndicated column is published by
Jewish newspapers in 45 cities throughoutlhe United States
and Canada.
Copyright 1987'
International Features^
Glasnost Law Permits Hebrew Teachers To Hold Classes
Continued From Page J
under way of the mikveh at-
tached to the Marina Rosha
synagogue in Moscow. The
closing of the mikveh last year
had aroused concern among
members of the Moscow
Jewish community and was
raised by Jewish spokesmen
with Konstantin Kharchev,
chairman of the council of
Religious Affairs, USSR Council
of Ministers, when the Soviet
official was in New York last
October.
The repair process was well
under way before he left
Moscow for the U.S. last mon-
th, Rabbi Shayevich said, ad-
ding that he expected the mik-
veh to be re-opened and fully
functioning in coming weeks.
Still another positive
development, he said, was the
permission granted by Soviet
authorities to permit the im-
portation of 5,000 copies of a
Hebrew-Russian Pentateuch
(Chumash) airshipped by the
Appeal of Conscience Foun-
dation to Moscow in time for
Shevuoth. The Soviet rabbi said
the books had been cleared
through customs with the help
of Mr. Kharchev, with whom
Rabbi Schneier had completed
arrangements for the ship-
ment.
Rabbi Shayevich said the
synagogue was selling the
Chumash for 10 rubles each to
members of the synagogue and
will make them available in
quantity to other synagogues in
the USSR for three to five
rubles each.
At the breakfast meeting,
Rabbi Schneier disclosed that
the Appeal of Conscience
Foundation had received per-
mission to send 5,000 copies
of a Russian-Hebrew prayer-
book (Siddur) to the Soviet
Union, and that this shipment
would be made in time for
Rosh Hashana. Like the
Chumash, the Siddur will be
distributed to synagogues in
Leningrad, Kiev and other
cities as well as in Moscow,
Rabbi Shayevich said.
It was also disclosed that two
more Russian students had
been admitted to the Rab-
binical Seminary in Budapest
and would begin their studies
there in the fall. One will study
to be a shochet and the other
to be a chazan, Rabbi Schneier
said. Both will serve the
Moscow synagogue.
Rabbi Shayevich said he was
"hopeful for the future,"
noting that "glasnost is a
process that will take time to
have its full effect." While
reticent about the prospects of
increased Jewish emigration
from the USSR, Rabbi
Shayevich said he was "op-
timistic” that there would be
increasing opportunities to
transmit "not only the customs
and practices of the Jewish
religion, but also Jewish
culture and history, not only
through the synagogue but also
through Jewish cultural in-
stitutions."
He explained that, as a rabbi,
he naturally hoped — and ex-
pected - to see greater in-
terest in synagogue life and
Jewish observance. "But even
those who are not religious,”
he said, "should have an op-
portunity to know their Jewish
heritage and develop their
Jewish identity.
"This too will come in time
with glasnost,” he said.
Rabbi Shayevich, 50, was
born in the Soviet autonomous
region of Birobidzhan, in the
Far East, and trained as an
engineer. He met Rabbi
Schneier in the Moscow
synagogue in 1972, while he
was studying Hebrew, and was
encouraged by the American
rabbi to enter the Budapest
Rabbinical Seminary under the
terms of an agreement worked
out by Rabbi Schneier with
representatives of the Soviet
and Hungarian governments.
He began his Jewish studies at
the age of 38, rqgrried in
Budapest and has two
children.
NEWS BRIEF
NEW YORK (JTA) - The JWB
has announced the winners of
the 38th annual National
Jewish Book Awards: Holocaust
— Robert Litton, "Nazi Doctors:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide” (Basic
Books); Jewish thought - Ar-
nold Eisen, "Galut: Modern
Jewish Reflection on
Homelessness and
Homecoming” (Indiana Univer-
sity); Israel
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 11, 1987, newspaper, June 11, 1987; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755162/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .