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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, July 22, 1993-Page 11
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By RABBI VV. GUNTHER PLAUT
Teddy. The moment a Jew who is halfway literate in niaiters concerning Israel hears the wprd "Teddy" the association is with "Kollek." Jerusalem's mayor since 1965.
But when an American hears the word he thinks of the R(X)scvelt who was president in the early part of the century and famous for his bravado and the motto. "Speak softly and carry a big stick," spoken at the Minnesota State Fair in 1901. ■
There was much speculation in Israel whether 82-year-old Teddy Kollek would again stand for the mayorahy. but happily he has indicated that he will again try to conciliate the apparently irreconcilable differences between, the city's inhabitants.
Kollek was born in Vienna and after making aliyah. became one of the founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev. His political career saw him as an ad-
visor to the Washington embassy and the director-generalship of David Ben Gurion, an office which he held from 1952-1964. There is a general feeling both in Israel and abroad that without Kollek. Jerusialem's political landscape and its Arab-Israeli tensions will explode, and therefore pressure on the mayor will be strong to stand once again for the office.
But of course there is another Teddy, and this one is better known than either Kollek or Roosevelt: that quasi-animate creature known as the teddy bear. ' ,.
It so hapf>ehs that a few weeks ago in a little town in southwestern Germany, a bronze statue of a teddy bear was unveiled in front of the factory where this cuddly little item was first inanufaciured. Then owner Richard Steiff fashiqned the toy and presented it for the first time at the Leipzig Fair in 1903. There was little interest in it until the last day oif the fair, when an American visitor discovered it and ordered 3,000
Rabbi Plaut
bears. Its popularity spread quickly and by 1907 Steiff had sold nearly a million. According to legend the bear was named by U.S. buyers after Roosevelt, a renowned bear hunter, and Roosevelt's great-grandson Tweed attended the anniversary ceremony.
Whether or not this important piece of information will help Teddy Kollek in his campaign remains to be seen. Righteous gentile; righteous Jew.
In the May edition of MUT/yo/cf, which is the national forum for Japanese Canadians, I found an article devoted to the relationship between righteous Jews and righteous gentiles.
During the years of the Holocaust, Japanese consul Senpo Sugihara issued more than 6,000 visas for Jews who could find ho resting place when fleeing from the Nazis. In recognition of this remarkable man Canadian Jewish Congress and the National Association of Japanese Canai-dians will jointly sponsor a Senpo Sugihara trib-
ute dinner on Nov. 7.
The Nekkei l^r^/cf has this comment: "We are reminded that there were many, mahy apprehensive riekkei (Japanese) men and women moving east to Winnipeg, to Toronto, to Montreal, who found their first jobs and helping hands came from Jews. If there are Righteous Gentiles, such as Senpo Sugihara, there are Righteous Jews in our own understandings, in our own experience, in our own history."
The article concludes with the followinng paragraph:
"And now as a recent survey discloses one in five Americans does not know about the Holocaust, and news items that the nay-sayers of the Holocaust are increasing, we are reminded too that lessons from history must be taught over and over again. It is significant and auspicious that the Canadian Jewish Congress should reach, out now to the National Association of Japanese Canadians to jointly honor the Righteous Gentile Senpo Sugihara."
By SHELDON KIRSHNER
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AlPAC). the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, is reeling after a series of embarrassing incidents. The latest blow fell on July 1. when AIPACs vice-president, Harvey Friedman, was forced to resign after calling Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin "a little slime-ball."
Friedman's ignominious fall came on the heels of Thomas Dine's abrupt resignation. AlPAC's longtime executive, director. Dine stepped down after confirming that he had described Orthodox Jews in the United States as ''smelly" and 'Mow class."
: These affairs, part of a pattern of self-inflicted damage, has scarred the imperturbable facade'of AlPAC, the premiere pro-Israel organization in the United States.
David Steiner. AlPAC's president until 1992. was the first to tarnish its reputation. In November of that year, he resigned in disgrace following an afrbgant boast that AlPAC had "a dozen people" in presidential candidate Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters, and that AlPAC was "negotiating" with Clinton over who would fill the role of secretary of stated
Steinermade these statements in a supposedly private conversation with a New York City businessman. Harry Katz.who had phoned to seek advice about a $100,000 contribution he wanted to channcltp pro-Israel congressional candidates backed by AlPAC.
Katz. who taped the conversation without iSteiner's knowledge, was so offended by the boastful tone that he relea.sed a transcript to. the
• Washington Times. :
The Steiner affair, which some pundits belieVe is symptomatic of AlPAC's arrogance of power, was preceded by ah unprecedented tongue-
■ lashing administered by the new Israeli prime mjnister. Yitzhak Rabin.
Rabin, who was Israel's ambassador to the United States in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War. took AlPAC to task for its confrontational style.^
Shortly after the June 1992 election, in which the Labor party defeated the Likud; Rabin sharply criticized AlPAC for its tactics in the bruising battle to .secure $10 billipri worth of U.S. loan-guarantees for Israel.
AlPAC had reportedly advised Rabin's predecessor. Yitzhak Shamir, to confront the Bush administration head-on. even after the U.S. president pointedly warned that he would not approve a bill authorizing the funds until Israel ceased building and expanding settlements in the territories.
AlPAC apparently believed, mistakenly, that there was sufficient support in Congress for the measure to .be adoped* despite Bush's veto.
In Rabin's estimation. AlPAC egregiously misjudged the situation, and thus pushed Israel into a nasty and unneces.sary fight with its chief ally. Drawing Conclusions from this ejiisode. Rabin made it clear that, in the future, he wanted AlPAC to follow the lead of the Israeli government and focus its concentration on Congress and leave the White House to Israeli diplomats.
In retrospect, the fate which befell Steiner and Dine, w:as indicative of the hubris that had befallen AlPAC in recent years.
Formed in the 1950s ta foster American sup-
port for Israel, AiPAC grew into one of the strongest and most feared lobbying groups on Capitol : Hill; Despite two major setbacks in the late 1970s and early 1980s (it failed to stop the sale of F-15 jets and reconnaissance planes to Saudi Arabia), AIPAC was, nevertheless, a force to be reckoned with in Washington.
It helped Israel obtain high levels of U.S. economic and military aid; it worked to cement Israel's .strategic alliance with the United States; it was in.strumental in ousting an influential opponent. Charles Percy of Illinois, from his Senate seat. ■
However. AlPAC's victories bred an overweening self-confidence — which not only accounted for Steiner's ill-considered remarks but led Dine into a minefield that he. as a'well-regarded professional lobbyist, should have avoided at all'costs.
Dine's negative characterization of American Orthodox Jewry was containedJn David Landau's recently-published book. Piety and Power: T}ie , World of Jewish Fundamentalism. Dine apolo-' gized and insisted that he was merely putlihing : the views of some of his constituents, but it was too late. He was asked to leave.
The flap around Friedman was doubtless caused by his inability, and perhaps that of other. senior AIPAC officials, to adjust to the existence of a Labor party government in Jerusalem.
For years, critics had charged AIPAC with tilting toward Likud in terms of ideplogy. while trying to squelch liberal dissent pyer Israel's policies visra-vis the statusofUie territories and the Palestinians living there under Israel's occupation; In its defence. AIPAC claimed it was supporting the status quo — the government of the day.
But the controver.sy surrounding Friedman's resignation proved that this claim could not stand up to scrutiny.
Three weeks before he was given the boot. Friedman was censured by AlPAC's board for lambasting Rabin's policy of trading land in exchange for a peace treaty with Syria.
The reprimand may well have come at the initiative of Steiner's successor. Steve Grossman, who accepts the need for territorial compromise.
This incident was blown out of all projxjrtion when Friedman cast aspersions on Beilin after the latter reportedly said that Israel was prepared to withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries,.with the' exception of Jerusalem, in return for a durable "peace agreement.
Interestingly enough. Beilin ascribed Fried-. man's downfall to "the transtormatidn of AIPAC in recent years into a right-wing Jewish organization;"
It's clear that AlPAC. which has yet to pick Dine's or Friedman's siiccessors. is passing through a wrenching period-of readjustment.
In essence. AIPAC must adjust to the fact that a new Israeli government, with different perceptions and priorities, has taken charge.
Yet the problems which have rpcked AIPAC — whose membership and budget .spared under Dine's tutelage — have not really affected Israel's pivotal relationship with the United States; • It remains rock solid, and especially so under Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton.;
Last month, the House of Representatives passed a $3 billion aid package for Israel — notwithstanding earlier fears that massive U.S. assistance to Russia would have a detrimental effect on the flow of assistance to the Jewish state.
By ERICA MEYER RAUZIN
Ihe men of the Class of 1968 came froiu everywhere; Damascus, Kath-mandu. San Francisco. Miami. Boston. Toronto, to a small campus in the mountains of New Hampshire. They came from the pro.sperous suburbs of ' Newtpn. Massachusetts, and Stamford. (G'onnecticut. from the rural communities of Cape Ccxl and the hills of West Virginia.
More than 200 of them gathered to celebrate their 25th reunion, to be together with those who knew them then, to show their children their Alma Mater, to-touch base with their base, to dance and picnic, walk and talk; party and play and ponder.
The nien had changed. The young, beer-drinking, hard-studying, hard-playing rascals had become hu.sbands and fathers. Some still did things the hard way. some still had a beer or two, but there was a softness in both manner and mien that had not existed 25 years before. They had aged, albeit gracefully, and seemed to be handling their mid-fortie.s with aplomb, at least until one of the accomplished singers at a reunion weekend concert greeted them with the message, "I'm glad to perform for you tonight; I was born the year you graduated."
One of my husband's fraternity brothers looked at the singer and shook his head."Nope," he said, ''nobody matures that fast."
But. alas, it was true We discovered that we seemed as old to the kids on campus as the Class of 1943 seemed to us. that we were oiir parents, only in 100 percent cotton T-shirts and a belter grade of sneakers.
And if our husbands had changed, .so has their old school; First of all, . in their heyday, it wa.s an all-male deal. Now. about 45 percent of the \
students are women. When they attended, it was a pretty homogenous place with a few Jewi.sh students, a few mega-high achievers of various ethnic and racial backgrounds. But now. if is a regular patch-work quilt, sons and daughters of ever>' nationality; race, creed and ;song_- ' '" :■."•'■;,;"
We tried to help bur daughters, ages six and ten; understand their father's college experience. We walked them around campus, took them canoeing on the river,-showed them his former; dorm and introduced them to his fonuer roommates. They didn't get it. They thought it was a beautiful place, but they were much more in-
Erica Mever Rauzin
terested in the other kids their,age and in the logistics, pfdonuilory living. Our six-year-old looked at the vintage dormitory room assigned to pur family: two sleeping alcoves, two closets, two desks, a tiny fireplace, a miniscule half-bath (showers down the hall) and a cracked linoleum floor, and asked; "Why did we leave our gocxJ. house to come here?'' But she got into the junior program so joyfully that by the second day. when we invited her to cpme with us for an afternon of recreation on campus, she turned us down flat.
"I'm going back to the kids' tent
vy'he're I belong." she said. "You guys go to school."
Ours was hot the only six-year-old in the junior program tent.. We discovered that the Class of '68.is.^at a different stage in their lives than past 25th reunion groups. With former quarter-century reunion grpups. getting their trenage chil-dren into the college (and then paying the tuition) w-as the major issue (as it will be to this grpup later). This weekend, the reunion's activity program for grade school children was miich more of an immediate bonus; Although these men had gray in their beards, they had toddlers and first-
; graders in their arms. Their adult live.s started late, shaped by forces such as the Vieinani War and the U.S. draft lottery, that are ancient history to today's career-drivencollege grads. These alumni will be in their 50s- when their kids are teenagers, so they belter not have aged much so far; they're'going to need to be young a long time.
These men had followed hundreds of different roads out into the world from this sheltered campus but this w'eekend all the roads converged at a 25-year mile marker. Nobixiy wasted the opportunity being superficial. "How ya doing" became a question that meant more than "Where do you live" and"What work do you do?" It became a touchstone: how do you live, is your
. life good, did your decisions work out? Most people took the time to give real answers; answers they had to think about first; although there was; the guy whose answer to the question. "Where are you now?'' was, *'Here.'"
We left happy and relaxed; TReleunionwas a great party as well as an opportunity to be with old friends and think about the past, and the future. We hope we'll all be back together at the 30th reunion, but between now and therTT a bunch of us have plotted to go on an adventure with a fellow alumnus wlro guides treks in Kathmandu.
. So. have We gotten old? Nah. See you in Nepal.