Page 2 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 13,1983
M-T
World-Nadonal
Seminar fomm for
voice
By
RABBI W. GUNTHER PLAUT
A few weeks ago I addressed the annual leadership seminar sponsored by the Synagogue Council of America. The chairman of the meeting was Rabbi Walter Wurzburger (once rabbi of Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue in Toronto and now a renowned Ortiiodox leader in the United States), * ""--'^ v-^.
and the' new president of the Council to be installed that day, is Rabbi Mordecai Waxman (a Conservative leader from Great Neck, Long Island). In the audience were some 300 rabbis and lay leaders of varying religious convictions. It was the kind of assembly rarely seen in Canada.
The Synagogue Council was founded in 1926 at the suggestion of Rabbi Abram Simon, then precident of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. According to its constitution, the council is to speak with a united voice in furthering the members' common religious interests without in any way interfering with the autonomy of any of its constituents.
There are six member organizations: from* the. Orthodox, the Rabbmical Council of America and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations; from the Conservatives, the Rabbinical Assembly arid the United Synagogue of America; and for the Reform movement, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
In the nearly 60 years of its existence, the council has represiented the religious community to the American government and to non-Jewish religious bodies. Its meetings present splendid opportunities for sharing diverse opinions, and the unity and larger common purpose of the religious community are symbolized by its very existence.
Develop ambience of trust
Most important, it provides the opportunity for meeting face to face, even when contentious issues are at stake. As for me, it has given me a chance to meet the leaders of the other movements and to develop with them an ambience of trust.
Here in Canada we have no sqch cdimcil, which is a pity. Instead, we have a polarized commonity where people from varioas religious camps hardly spieak with each other. In some commanities the Reformers are isolated, in other cities Reform and Conservative leaders frequently sit down with each other bat have only the barest relationship with the Orthodox.
In Montreal there is a Board of Ministers which is the nearest thing to a local synagogue council. Toronto has a Board of Rabbis to which all Reform and Conservative rabbis belong but which has been joined by only a very few Orthodox leaders.
Spend a lot of time fighting
On the national scene we have the religious affairs department of Canadian Jewish Congress, staffed by Rabbi Robert Sternberg. He and his department have done yeoman work in inter-religious affairs; still, despite repeated attempts in the past, they have not been able to move the three conimunities into a meaningful national synagogue council.
In my memory, only on two occasions did the rabbis of all three movements join forcefully for a common purpose: during the time of the Ottawa march for Soviet Jewry, when President Kosygin was visitingjCanada, and a year ago when at the height of the Lebanon war the emergency task force of the Canada-Israel Committee wa^ instrumental in bringing the rabbis of the various movements together in a joint action, just before the holidays.
We are relatively few Jews fai Canada, and sometimes it seems to me that we spend a good deal of onr time fighting with each other. That would not be bad. The real pity is that we do not even have a proper formn where we can listen to each other so that we then might disagree.
Aridor seeks US. gnmts, not loans
By
WOLFBLITZER
WASHINGTON —
Finance Minister Yoram Aridor has made clear his intention to continue discussions with the Reagan administration on a reduced ^verall level of U.S. military assistance to Israel provided it is all in the form of outright grants, rather than in loans.
But within the IsraeU government, Aridor's approach has come under sharp criticism from Defence Minister Moshe Arens, who fears that a lower overall total will weaken Israel's ability to purchase future military equipment from the United States.
The defence ministry is clearly more concerned about making large-scale U.S. arms purchases than about Israel's ability to repay loans. The finance ministry, on the other hand, fears the serious implications of Israel's mounting debt burden by taking on more U.S. loans which have to be repaid at near commercial interest rates.
Israel already has the highest per capita ex-
ternal debt in the world.
Meeting with reporters at the Sheraton Washington Hotel on Sept. 28, Aridor repeatedly said the embassy's economic minister, Dan Halperin, had been fdlly authorized "by fiie State of Israel" to enter into these discussions on foreign aid levels with the Americans. "And I have been folly authorized to make that statement,'' he said.
Israel is formally scheduled to submit its request to the Reagan administration for addi -tional economic and military assistance in the 1985 fiscal year budget by mid-October. The Aridor talks in Washington were designed to provide the Americans with additional background information on the state of the Israeli economy.
According to well-informed Israeli sources, Israel is prepared to accept a $1.3 billion military assistance level from the United States in the 1985 package, provided that aU of it is in the form of a grant. In the pending 1984 legislation still before Congress, Israel is slated to receive $1.7 billion in
Yoram Aridor
military assistance.
The Reagan administration recommended that only $550 million of that total be in grants, the rest in loans. But Congress is likely to increase the grant portion to half of the total — or $850 million. The other half would be in loans.
Thus, under the Aridor proposal, the grant military assistance to Israel would increase from $850 million to $1.3 billion — an increase of $450 million. But the total of grants and loans * of course, would be decreased by $400 million.
Arens and the defence ministry are concerned about this "missing" $400 million which could be used to order additional weapons from the United States.
In response, the finance ministry has assured Arens and his associates that it will guarantee available money for more weapons by going to commercial weapons purchases, if necessary, by going to commercial banks. But the defence ministry is reluctant to become "dependent '' on the finance ministry, according to an IsraeU official.
At the news conference, Aridor sought to belittle the rift by insisting that the finance and defence ministries have always disagreed on siich matters. "I make it a matter of policy not to discuss differences with other ministers in public," he said.
But the fact was that the difference has surfaced in the Israeli news media as a major problem facing the Israeli government.
The proposal to reduce the overall level of military assistance to Israel — provided they are all converted into grants — was first raised daring talks held by Arens and Foreign Mhiister Yitzhak Shamir with Secretary of State George Sholtz hi July. At that time, Israeli officials
to win a JNF tour of Israel
JERUSALEM —
Twelve-year-old Winnipeg student Sara Dar-gun is a whiz among her peers when it comes to reeling off facts about Israel. She won the junior division of the Jewish National Fund of Canada' s Know the Land of Israel Contest during the last school year, earning a 10-day guided tour of Israel.
Interviewed in Israel at the conclusion of her trip, she was modest in victory. "I had a very scrappy knowledge of Israel before I came, but the JNF competition helped to fill in the gaps," said Sara. "I imagined the country to be totally different. Seeing its stunning scenery for the first time and speaking with lots of people has helped me to feel a lot closer to Israel."
Sara, who was bom in Argentina, attends Bia-lik Elementary School. She traveled the length and breadth of northern Israel with the senior division winner Dalia Smolash, 15, a Bialik High School student in Montreal.
Dalia, a member of the Habonim Zionist youth movement, said she intends to spend a year in Israel after graduating from high school.
Dargun and Smolash -were among 1-5,000 Canadian Jewish day school students who participated in the JNF's Israel contest sponsored for the first time this past school year. Said Rabbi Jay Braverman, educational director of United Talmud Torahs of Mont-
real, who accompanied the girls to Israel, " Many Canadian Jews only have an historical and biblical knowledge of Israel. This contest is essentially an educational experience designed to assist Canadian Jewry in filling in a critical gap in their knowledge of modem Israel."
The Israel contest was initiated by former JNF educational emissary in Montreal, Ze'ev Peleg. France and Belgium will hold an adapted version of the contest this year and other countries are seriously considering following suit.
The contest will be held again this year in Canada, under the dirro-tion of JNF's new emissary Daniel Pe*er. He is also planning a student exchange program for visiting Israeli youth in
Canada to help Canadian Jewish students form personal relationships with Israelis their age.
Dargun and Smolash will be visiting Jewish schools in their cities to talk about their experience in Israel.
The contest consists of several rounds taking place over a period of four months. Parents were also actively involved, helping their children prepare. "I'm sure that they learned as much about Israel as their children," said Braverman.
To assist the children in studying for the contest, the JNF published an eye-catching handbook in English and Hebrew called The Israel I Love. It provides condensed texts with maps and photos on the geography, history, land settlement, social insti-
tutions, ethnic communities and national leaders of modern Israel.
Special emphasis is placed on the JNF projects which have contributed to land reclamation for settlement and tree-planting. Each chapter concludes with a series of questions to test the student's comprehension of the material.
This year students will be required to master a deeper and more comprehensive knowledge of Israel and the Hebrew language, organizers say.
"The ultimate purpose of the competition is to encourage Canadian Jewish youth to visit Israel and strengthen their link with Israel, making their identification with the Jewish homeland a priority in their lives, "said Braverman.
Sara Dargun of Winnipeg visits the Western Wall.
said, Arens did not issue any complaint. It was only later, they said, that the defence minister came to the conclusion that the proposal would weaken Israel's military purchasing power in the United States.
The former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Nicholas Veliotes, told a Congressional committee earlier this year that the administration was seriously thinking of making all of the foreign military sales program into a grant, with no repayment necessary.
In any case, Halperin and other Israeli experts took their initial cue from the Reagan administration and broached the idea during theShamir-Arens visit.
At that time, Shultz personally leveled some sharp criticism of Israel's recent economic policies. Israeli officials said the secretary was deeply concerned about the handling of Israel's economic, policies, especially the continued high rate of consumer spending.
The secretary, a former treasury secretary and University of Chicago economist, devoted a lengthy session during the Arens-Shamir visit to an overall review of the Israeli economy. Since taking office, Shultz has demonstrated a keen interest in the subject, given the nearly $2.5 billion annual U.S. foreign aid appropiriation to Israel. (In the pending 1984 budget, the administration recommended that Israel also receive $785 million in economic
— as opposed to military
— assistance. Congress, however, is expected to raise that economic sum to $910 million, all in
.grants.)
At the time of the talks in July, Shultz proposed the creation of a bilateral U.S.-Israeli economic committee to continue a detailed analysis of the Israeli economy. Israel agreed.
Thus, in advance of Aridor's arrival in Washington on Sept. 26, other senior U.S. and Israeli officials opened intensive talks at the state department. Aridor, himself, participated in the discussions on Sept. 27-28, including separate sessions with Treasury Secretary Donald Regan and the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, Martin Feld-stein.
Aridor, who had also come to Washington to participate m the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, strongly denied that Israel was seeking IMF loans. He also flatly denied a report in an Israeli newspaper that he had asked the Reagan administration to consolidate past Israeli loans. He noted that Israel had always repaid its debts, and would continue to do so. "These reports have absolutely no foundation of truth," he said.