Page 2-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, July 3. 1986
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RABBI \V. GUNTHER PLAUT
Long before Kurt Waldheim was finally elected president of Austria it became evident that the \vhole unsaypr>' affair- w^ould bring latent anti-semitism once more out into the open. ,
, THat it happened in Austria should surprise no student of that country, which up to now has made a.reiigion out of denying any responsibility for what happjcned in the Hitler years. Some 20 years ago, when 1 rnade a survey of Austrian textbooks, it became evident that the
: authorities followed a simple line:"Nazism
was German; the Ger- ' mans took over Austria in 1938 and forced their Rabbi Plaut^^ philosophy on us. a conquered nation: everything that happened later wa:s. therefore, the responsibility of the Germans and not ours..*" Never mind that Hitler vcas an Austrian, or that Austria had wildly and enthusiastically welcomed him at the time of the Anschluss..or that (as has been estimated) half . the officials at the extermination camps in Poland were Austrians. "We were a conquered nation.'' the official line stated. '"and the; past is not our
' problem." /
Meanwhile^ anti-semitism continued unabated in post-war Austria.
There were some bright spots — like the role the country played in the exodus of Soviet Jews
— but the unregenerates were always in evidence, especially when it came to questions of the Holocaust. But not in Austriaalone.Thi^y exist in our own midst, as my correspondents (usually anonymous) will testify; Just to give you a taste of what they have to say. here's the latest sample.: pntxluced in excerpt:
■■As a World War 11 criminal 1 would like to comment on your attackonW'aldheimI First allow me to confess my crimes during World War II —
•'I was a member of the RC.AF attached to the RAF. As a squadron we dumpi^d thousands of tons of bombs oh Europe; — no doubt some fell on innocent civilians. Like.Waldheim. I did not want to be involved as..I was. HoweV(:r 1 was there because I. was told to be ihere; 1 didwhat I did because I was ordered to do what I did! .;
'"Now what in hell would you Jewish bastards have done if you vvere in Waldheim's situation?. Don't telj me you would have acted differently. You bastards could also be accused of atrocities
— it has been known for you to commit thern. But with a hplier-than-thou attitude, what can one expect from you? You bastards will be stirring the Holocaust pot until.the endof time—-looking for sympathy or revenge.
"Historv' seems to be repeating itself — with your attempt at world domination — in even. area, the money markets, real estate, industrv' natural resources, etc.. etc. Maybe, just maybe. Hitler wasn't all that wrong. I do believe that he was iry-ing to stop your greed, of the same nature at that time'.
'•". . . Live and let live! People are sick and tired of your damn accusations about, the Holocaust.; '
".^ war criminal of World War II.
"No signature — foi- obvious reasons. ;
'.'Anti-semitic!?!? which you bastards thrive on.".';-' . " ■ ..'
One commenl only: clearly the Waldheim af^ fair has brought into the open what has been there all along,
Jews just too plugged into ovefall society
OTTAWA -
A contribution of : S374.5(X), to the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews to operate an .anglophone-francophone student exchange program involv-; ing 1.150 young people has been announced by Barbara McDoUgali; federal minister of state for finance on behalf of the Benoit Bouchard, secretary o^ state.' -
The project_nialches students betweeriT^ and 18 years of age and involves French-speaking students
from Quebec and partners from.a different province. Two students spend two weeks during July and August in Quebec and then tra\'el together to stay at the. home of the English-speaking partner for another 2-week period.
The exchange participants attend orientation sessions and correspond with their partners paar to tTie .exchange.==Slaff ftoai. the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews provide assistance .and loe. ■ •,
■.v'-..^-By---:, WOLF BLITZER
WASHINGTON -
Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for planning and resources, has been the prime mover in Washington in recent weeks in assessing the costs, of Israel'snev^' generation jet fighter, the Lavi. As such, he has Come under, sharp criticisrh from some Israeli officials. •
Zakheim. . who led an inter-agency study on the Lavi. concluded that the plane would wind up costing much more than the official Israeli estimates. Israeli officials have angrily challenged his figures The debate, of course, continues.
Whatever the outcome, the dispute, has highlighted a fascinating development in the cpn-duct of American-Israeli relations — something tliat would have been unheard of during the early years of Israel's independence. Increasingly, many key American officials involved in dealing w ith Israelon some of the most sensitive issues have themselves been Jewiish.
Despite the allegations of a potential conflict of interest and "dual loyalty," there has Jbeen no Ideally serious problem in assigning Jews to very sensitive / political, economic, military and intelligence tasks involving Israel.
In many respects. Henr>' Kissinger broke the ice in 1973 when he became the. first — and so far only — Jewish secre;tar),' of state, In. the Caner administration that follovyed, there were two Jewish special envoys to the Middle East: Robert
Shelter
meet
OTTAWA -
. Canada will celebrate International Year of Shelter for the Homeless in 1987, Monique Vezina. minister for external relations, announced recently. .
'•We realize that like many other countries, Canada has too many citizens who cannot afford decent housing." Vezina said in the Hoq.se of Commons.. "However, ifwe compare bur situation v^'ith the rest of the world. Canadians are privileged indeed." -
As part of United Nations' Intehiational Year of Shelter for the Hoiiieless. Vezina said the Canadian International Development Agency and. the Canada Mortgage arid Housing Corporation will be taking part in a conference dealing \yith housing for the needy. The conference;, sponsored by the Canadian Committee of the International Council on Social Welfare and the Canadian Association of Housing and Renewal. wilLbe held.iiv the fall, of 1987. ' .
Strauiss and Sol Linowitz. That pattern has-continued in the Reagan administration. The old taboo of being Jewish and dealing with Israel has since become
Some observers have ex^ pressed fear that the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy scandal has revived some of those earlier fears. Pollard; the former U.S. naval intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to spying for Israel, is Jewish. But the Pollard case, so far. does not appear to have had any serious effect Oh this trend of dispatching Jews to deal with Israel.
The Jewish community in America in 1986 seems just too plugged into the overall society for that embarrassing setback to have turned back the clock.
Zakheim is by no rneans the only example of a Jew in. a ■ sensitive U.S. slot, althougii, Jjecause of the Lavi controversy, his name has app>eared quite often in the headlines lately. Zakheim is hot only Jewish', but strictly Orthodox.
A graduate of a yeshiva high school in NeWYork, Columbia yhiversity, and Oxford University in England wherie he earned a doctorate, he also has smicha, or Orthodox rabbinic ordination. He never has actually practiced, but getting smicha w as something he always wanted since it has been
a longstanding family tradition. His fatfief, a lawyer in New York, also bias smicha, as did his grandfathers and greatgrandfathers.
He is fluent in Hebrevv, He attends Shabbat services at a small, strictly Orthodox synagogue in suburban Silver Springs, Md., where the Israeli embassy's number 2 dipr lomat, Charge d'Affairs Eli Rubinstein, who is Orthodox, also happens to pray.
Zakheim; 37 years old; does not feel any confiicts. He is an American official, simply doing his job. He honed his military arid analytical skills years earlier as a legislative staffer bri Capitol Hill,
His cost estimates on the Lavi — while irritating to some Israeli officials — are not designed to embarrass or hurt Israel. Just the opposite is /the case, he points biit. Given the fixed amount of^ money avail: able, Israel's best longterm interests require spending it as effectively as po.ssible. By raising these very hard questions about the Lavi. he believes he may. in fact be doing Israel a big favor. 'But Zakheim is not alone. Whether in the Pentagon, the state department, the Central Iri-telligence Agency, the White House, the National Security Council, the' justice department; the FBI
or the Congress, there Js no shortage ofj;ews working in very senior and extreme-: ,ly sensitive positions. And often, they are instructed to focus their attention . on Israel, a key U.S. ally. Lately. this has been almost fashionable.
At the state department; for example. Secretary of State George Shultz has Judge Abraham Sofaer as his chief legal advisor. Sofaer, like Zakheim, also has been in the news lately because of his recent effort to bridge Israeli-Egyptian?, differences over setting the-, ternis of reference for resolving the Taba border dispute.
Sofaer was also the head of the inter-agency U.S. delegation that went to Israel last December to question Israeli officials implicated in the Pollard affair. Like Zakheim, Sofaer is a proud Jew, whose children attend Jewish day school. He. hirnself, is a graduate of Yeshiva Uriiversity in New York. He has never sought to hide his Jewishness.
When Shultz needed advice on how best to help solve Israel's economic headaches two years ago. he turned to Profs. Herbert • Stein of the American Enterprise Institute and Stanley Fischer of MIT. two of America's best economists. Both are Jewish.
Since then, both have
bee^n intimately involved in helping to restructure the Israeli economy — sometimes to the irritation of Israeli finance ministry officials. But overall, their views were highly respected and eventually appreciated. In Washington, there was no fear of dual loyalty. .
For nearly 15 years, the state department has routinely sent Jewish foreign, service officer's to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv although there has not yet: been a Jewish am-bassador to Israel. Over the years, there has been a host of Jewish diplomats in the embassy's key political section — many fluent in Hebrew and one or two even quite religious.
The eight members of the Senate and the 30 members of the House of Representatives who are Jewish are al.so quite comfortable in. their roles as Americans and as Jews. They don't see any conflicts ; even- though Gore Vidal, the American writer, raised a stoiro of protest in March when he attacked pro-Israeli Americans as the "Israeli F i fth Cpi u mn p i V is ion?' • • But the basic nature of America as a land of immigrants is still ver>' much an integral part of the country. It is a dynamic testimony to the maturity, .sel f-con fidence and growth of the United States.
:■■ Bv ELLEN GOODMAN
BOSTON-
1 didn't really mind when Jeane Kirkpatrick' became a columnist. What the heck, it coiild have been worse: She might have become a lobbyist.
I was equally philosophical when Lee laccoca started being syndicated. After all, he'd already been incorporated. He was a garage-hold name.
When they started marketing the Pope as a columnist, it didrnake me a touch uneUsV; How; would you like to compete with someone \vho'sirifalliT ble? But, you know how these things go. I adjusted.
This however is too much. I have just heard that 48-year-old Clark Kent is getting his own newspaper column. ; ': Let me trace this journalistic scandal to its begin-ings. The guy known throughout Metropolis as . Superman, is being updated by DC Comics. The sole survivor of a destroyed planet, the veritable man of steel, the guy "faster than a speeding bullet." has been suffering from sluggii,*: sales. . They have decided to enlarge Superman's popularity by reducing his superpowers. "He's not going to be able to fly to Mars and back before . breakfast," says a mere mortal from DC Comics. "If he's holding back a Boeing 747. he's going to notice it.'.' They are betting that a small grunt, a bit of sweat, a speed slower than thatbf light, will bridge the credibility gap that has grown between Superman of 1938 and the science-sawv kids of 1986. ■ '. ■
Well, it is bad enough that Supernian is getting renovated, h's far far more .serious that Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet; is getting reassigned.
No longer the wimp's wimp, Clark Kient will emerge now as "self-assured," more open about his feelingsi a guy who writes novels on the side and keeps a fitness machine in his bachelor pad. And during the day ^ he is going to be "a feature writer or a columnist." You know what that means: Another columnist is joining the ranks — a cross between Bill Buckley and Maria Shriver's husband.
Frankly" I think Lois Lane should file a suit for
being passed oyer: She was covering news iill these =
years while he was making it: In fact, Kent made S
a lousy reporter; He got overly involved in the . s
stor>:. He dropped his objectivity every time he =
dropped his civvies.; He was forever taking sides. S
But that doesn't mean he should move into opi- =
nion writing. It just isn't fair to the rest of us in. =
the business. .=
Clark Kent already has an alter ego, he doesn't 1
need a column. The whole concept of Superman 5
is that brawn is stronger than brain, that a superhero E
may be weak with words but powerfiil on the wing. =
or at least the cape. Superman is supposed to be : .S
a creature of action, not analysis. S
The old Clark Kent needed the newspaper to get S
to the battle scene, not to fight the battle. The = defender of "truth, justice and the.American way " ; S
neyer-once wrapped himself in the First Amend- 1
meni when he could strip down to his Big S. v =
The rest of the columnists, take my word tor it. =
are not that lucky. We need the work more than. 1
he does. The word processor is our telephone 1
bix)th. vve enter it mild mannered and emerge with i
soaring power: It's a bird I It's a plane! It's a cause- i
carrying columnist! ^ =
Deep down, we can't measure up. We know i
that Clark Kent's alter ego can stop "injastice," E
while the rest of us can only deplore it. He can s
pursue "the American way," while we can on- 1
ly point to it. He may suffer from conflict of in- =
teresti but we suffer from an inferidrity =
■ complex. ■■ ■ =
I consider this incursion by Superman onto our =
turf a blatant example of unfair competition. What H
political commentator can change the system with . 1
such ease? What humorist can leap over tall =
deadlines in a single bound? =
Send Kent to the police beat, or at least assign 5
him to the foreign desk, since his travel expenses =
are so low. But keep him away from column- =
writing. 5
Mind you, I arn not personally threatened by this =
newcomer. Not so long as I have the kryptonite s
in my desk. But tell me: How can someone with =
mere insight ever compete with Xrrayvvision? 1
(Copyright Washington Post Writers Group) 5
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