Isnwl President Ephndqi Katitr lights Cluunilai candles daring a btM ■top-over at MIrabd Airport outside Montreal. He was on way badi
(Photo Illustntions of Canada) horn a tour of Central Amerlcai Others Crom kft are Isad Coond-General Zvl Ca^l and Amhassador to Canada Mordecal Shalev.
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Western cities are ill-equippted to handle influx of Soviet Jews
By JANICE ARNOLD
MONTREAL —
Jewish Immigrant Aid Services, now approaching its 60th year, is being forced to shift its traditional strength in Montreal and Toronto to other centres, particularly in Western Canada.
The reason for the shift — which professionals say may have very noticeable repercussions in the next couple of years — can be attributed to a variet>' of developments but the most outstanding is the decision of many Soviet Jewish imigrants to settle on the Prairies,. far from the two
areas — Montreal and Toronto — where Jewish immigrants have made their homes ever since the first Jews came to Canada in the 18th century.
Perhaps as many as 3,500 Soviet Jews have come to Canada in the past three years. The result has been ill-
equipped Jewish community' social workers in the West swamped with clients that they have had no training to deal with.
Those are the observations and conclusions arrived at in a two-day conference on Jewish immigration recently convened in Montreal to
Central Region eocectUive to
TORONTO [Stafi] ~
Canadian Jewish Congress Central Region—by a vote of 15 to 11 — has/decided to open its regional executive meetings to the "public Jewish press, publishing regularly and having a proven circulation."
In what observers called a lengthy and lively discussion last week, the executive agreed to open sessions on a six-month trial basis. A committee of three, headed by CJC Central Region Chairman Sam Filer, will convene in advance of its next meeting in January to discuss ground-rules for in camera portions of debate.
An earlier officers meeting, which includes the core "cabinet" personnel, paissed on its reconmiendation in favor of the open meetings to the executive. The executive numbers close to 200 people in the Ontario region. Officers meetings wUl remain private.
Eastern Region of Congress was the first to open its sessions last summer. And CJC National President Rabbi Gonther Plaut, who argued strongly for the motion in the Central Regibn. said he hoped to see national meetings opened to the press next year. He said he plans to put the issue to a vote at the February executive meeting.
"The business of Congriess is the business of the Jewish public," he noted in an inter* view. "If Congress is the , pariiament of the Jewish people, like Pariiament its
proceedings must be public."
The rabbi remarked that the idea that the general or Jewish community should not be. informed of Congress matters was "redolent of a past age."
Preparing a brief in favor of the motion was Toronto Jewish Congress Preisident Milton Harris w-ho argued'that "public reporting at Congress meeting^ is the only way to give Congress the necessary exposure to make it an essential focus of community issues, and impress on the public consciousness that Congress is the central deliberative body of the entire
community;."
Harris said the issue of open meetings "had been on th^ table for the last five years or so."
David Satok, chairman of the executive committee of-Congress national, argued against the motion. His brief was not made available to The CJN.
Filer said some members were reluctant to include the press, in case publicity inhibited debate or led t0| dramatic statements "for personal aggrandizement." Several people expressed concern over headline-grabbing stories or the publication
of divisions or dissent within the Congress ranks.
The Central Region chairman said that objective criteria have not been set down as to which matters will be relegated to in camera discussion, although a rough set of issues will be established in conversations with editors.
It is conceivable, he added, that in advance of meetings a printed agenda would deter-mme which items would be closed to reporters.
Filer viewed the move as an inducement in creating "a positive flow of feelings from the community" as awareness of Congress activities and decisions increases.
MONTREAL [Staff] —
The board of The Hebrew Academy h^ requested that Allied Jewish Cbnununity Services purchase the piece of land in Cote St. Luc that the school bought last year.
The property, located between Mackle aind Kildare Streets, was intended to' be the site of a new sdiool. Building plans were scrapped last year.
This recommendation was part of a fbor-point pliui (^red in a meeting last Thursday with representa-^^ tivesfrom AJCS and the Jewish Education Council.
The other proposals were: that the school be given the
$25,000 set aside by the JEC for emergency use; that AJCS help in the organization of a community-wide campaign, and that suitable quarters be rented from the Catholic or Protestant school board to house the Hebrew Academy.
AJCS and the JEC spokes-menrhave reserved any comment on the offer other than to say that negotiations wiD continue and a decision should be made shortly.
The Hebrew Academy has an accumulated deficit of $300,500 and can no longer receive credit from its bank. The 39 teachers at the academy walked out for two days atthebeginningof this month
when they did not receive their November pay.
The teachers were paid half of their monthly salary the following week and have stayed on the job since. One teadier .frt)m the Frendi departmient left the sdiool's employ to wo A elsewhere.
The other half of their pay was received last ¥n<iay. Hebrew Academy President Cantor A. L. Subar said the teachers have agreed not to strike again until Jan. 31 even if they do not receive tl«r December pay.
He also sud that to date tiie parents have donated over $230,000 towards paying off the deficit.
By SHELDON KIBSHNER
TORONTO —
Canada's widely-applauded decision to offer Anatoly Scharansky landed immigrant status represents no basic change in Canadian policy toward dissidents and should be seen within the context of the family reunion plan to which Ottawa subscribes.
This was stated by a senior Department of External Affairs spokesman in the wake of a Canadian-initiated meeting this week between External Affairs Minister Don Jamieson and Soviet Ambassador Alexandre Yakovlev on the 29-year-old activist. _
He said the 11-day hunger strike by Jewish York University students on behalf of Scharansky. who faces treason charges, had no real effect on the government.' 'The most significant thing is that Scharansky- has relatives here," he explained in a telephone interview from Ottawa.
Scharansky, an internationally known dissident, helped form the Committee for the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreement. His special responsibility was to monitor whether Moscow was honoring its commitments to Jews under the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki accord.
He was arrested nine months ago, accused of being a CIA spy, and according to Soviet law he should have been brought to trial on Thursday of this week. (The CJN went to press Tuesday night.)
The External Affairs official said Jamieson confined his representation to the Scharansky case. The ambassador's reaction, he disclosed, was one of "neutrality. He made no specific observations one way or the other, and he did not indicate when we'd get an answer. We set no time limit on it. The ball's in their court."
Eric Gertner, one of Scharansky's law7ers here, told The Canadian Jewish News that the government would support a House of Commons resolution condemning the Soviet Union if it turned down Canada's offer.
The resolution would then be dispatched to Moscow and to Canada's delegate at the Belgrade Conference reviewing the Helsinki accord.
This pledge, he disclosed, was made last Saturday when Multiculturalism Minister Norman Cafik conferred with some of the students and members of the Jewish community at the Hotel Toronto. It was at thiis point that the students called off their hunger strike.
A diplomat in the Soviet embassy who was asked to comment on the case said the matter would be decided by a court of law, not by the External Affaus Department. "What will be their decision we will see/' he remarked in an interview.
Jamieson's disclaimers to the contrary, the diplomat accused Canada of meddling in the internal affairs of his country. "All capitalist countries try to meddle. They have done this for 60 years, so I'm not surprised."
Jevrish — and non-Jewish — reaction to OtUwa's offer to permit Scharansky to emigrate as a landed immigrant was unanimously favorable.
Gertner and his colleague, Joseph Pomerant, were ecstatic.
Lou Garber, executive director of York University's Jewish Student Federation, congratulated the government. Max Shecter, chairman of the Canadian Committee for Soviet Jewry, called it "one of the most positive steps .. . taken by the government on behalf of Soviet Jewry."
MP Robert Kaplan (L. York Centre), who organized last Saturday's meeting between Cafik and several representatives of the Jewish community, said he was pleased by what he termed "the dramatic action" undertaken by the government.
Martin 0'Council (L. Scarborough East), chairman of an inter-party parliamentary committee formed to monitor the Helsinki Final Act and its provisions on human rights, echoed the External Affairs spokesman in saying Ottawa's offer did not signal a change in policy.
"It's an application of policy to a specific case," he said. "The government has intervened in family reunion cases for a number of years."
Asked what Ottawa would do if Moscow rejected its offer, he replied: "If they slam the door on reasonable entreaties, then they slam the door and 1 don't know if there are any. instrumentalities we can use."
A similar theme was sounded by Andrew Brewin (NDP. Greenwood), a second member of the inter-party committee. "Canada's power is purely persuasive, but we should let the Soviets know they can't expect a friendly reception here if they violate the Helsinki agreement."
Pomerant, analyzing the impact of the students' himger strike on Ottawa, said they served as catalysts. Commenting on the decision itself, he "said it represented a "drastic departure'' from Ottawa's usual policy of non-invblvement in the domestic affairs of the Soviet Union.
Pomerant said Prime Minister Trudeau personally directed Canada's response. "He applied his very intelligent mind to a problem he hadn't given enough attention to in the past."
Garber said the 16 students who participated in the hunger strike were directly responsible for spurring Ottawa into action. But he also paid tribute to other groups across the country concerned with Scharansky's plight.
Cont'd on Paga 2
NOTICE
Due to the Post Office holiday schedule, there will be no Dec. 23 edition of The Canadian Jewish News. For the Dec. 30 edition, the deadline for all advertising and editorial copy is Monday, Dec. 19 at 2 p.m. The offices of The CJN will be closed Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 26 and 27.
For the Jan. 6 edition, the deadline for all editorial and advertising copy is Thursday, Dec. 29 at 2 p.m. The offices of The CJN will be closed Monday, Jan. 2.
allow about 40 professionals from across the country to .discuss, for the first time, their common problems.
The conference centred mainly on "shop talk" — vocational counselling, integration into the Jewish communities, language classes, financiar assistance and the like.
Western delegates, commenting in interviews and speeches, say they face the dual problem of coping not only with more immigrants than the Jewish com^nunities of that area have ever witnessed in recent times, but also a unique kind of immigrant— the. Soviet.
Many of the smaller communities do not have the personnel, let alone the expertise, to properly absorb the Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union. An example is Regina. which sent its local rabbi to the conference.
(JIAS has offices in Montreal and Toronto, w ith some representation in Vancouver and Ottawa.)
"We are tr>ing to cultivate local agencies that can handle the influx of. immigrants, sensitizing them to the needs of the immigrant. We will initiate programming: we are asking them to try and carry it out," said Joe Kage. executive vice-president of JIAS.
The number of immigrants going to Montreal and Toronto is getting close to the 50-50 marit. Only a few years ago 65% went to Montreal and 30% to Toronto.
The wave of North African immigrants to Montreal, seen in the '50s and '60s. is on the decline and Montreal is now receiving cases from at least 15 diffierent countries in mainly Europe and the Middle East.
"We will know in a year what effect the Quebec situation will have on the number of immigrants settling in Quebec. Up to now I have seen no real change," said Kage. "1 have a htmch the Quebec government is trying to establish a reception service for immigrants."
The National Budgettng _Confepence. whidi oversees the funding of JIAS. has ntged more co-orffinatkm of services across Cuiada.
Com*d on Paoi 2
(David (Srqskind photo)
Chanoka candles are lit at Yoric University Sunday as atmlenta tfam ended Aelr hanger strike <» behalf of So-\1et activist Anatoly Sdiaransky. From left are: Judge PhQ Givens, president, Canadian Zionist Fedmtkm; Ontario Attorney General Roy McMortiy; Albert Wolkensteln, a member <rf York's Jewish Student Fedeiatkm advisory board; Max Shecter, chahman, Canadian Committee for Soviet Jewry; Rabbi Albert Pappenheim of Bnal brad Beth ' David Congregadon and lUIph Robensteln and Randy Robbison, each <^ whom fastedj for II days at the imlvaalty.
CBC radio's coverage^^o^ tenned'biased, shocking'by CIC
By TOBA KORENBLUM TORONTO —
The Canada-Israel Committee is taking the CBC to task over what it calls "biased" coverage of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem.
The CIC's charges centre on Sunday Momtog,- a current affairs radio program broadcast nationally on the AM network, whose three-hour coverage of the Sadat trip was viewed as "shocking" by the committee's" director of communications, Nick Simmonds. _^
Simmonds takes umbrage with the tabloid-style program's roster of commentators, who "without exception are negative in their attitude to Israel" and have a record of being hostile to Sonism.
"Our ongoing quarrel with the CBC," he says, "is not that they use these p^ple but that they have a duty in terms of profi»sionalism to balance tii^ points of view with others."
The head of current affairs for CBC radio and the director
of program operations were both contacted repeatedly for commient, but did not return calls. The director of pro-' graming for the AM network, Margaret Lyons, said she was not handling the complaint and was unfamiliar with the charges.
the Sonday Morning lineup, as Simmonds describes it, included commentators Eric Rouleau, a correspondent with Le Monde who has decidedly "pro-Arab" sentiments; Peter Mansfield, author of Hie Arabs, who is . "virulently anti-Israel".; Jim Letterman, the CBC's Jerusalem correspondent; Mons-sa Muzawi, a Palestinian law professor in London; Roland Evans, a syndicated columnist who writes from Washington with Robert Novak, a "diabolical" pair as far as Israel is concerned; 1. F. Stone, "the token American Jewish input who is completely out of sync with mainstream Jewish opinion," and David Holden, chief fbreign corcpspondent for the London' Sunday Times who has "a record of negative attitudes to
Israel." (Holden was killed in Cairo last weekend where he was to cover the' Israeli-Egj-ptian negotiations.)
The CBC, charges Simmonds "displayed a frightening lack of sensitivity" in their selection of commentators. Although he is not tiaking public issue with the television coverage, he notes that the prime commentator employed there was the head of the department of Mideast and Islamic studies at the University of Toronto.
TheFM network, as well as the AM station, carried the commentary of Edith Penrose, a specialist in the politics of oil in the Mideast, ti^hose pro-Arab sympathies have been illustrated, said Simmonds. .
Last month Simmonds circulated a paper at a conference of CBC management and production persoimel where he &gain singled out Sonday Morning and the evening current affairs program Aa It HappoM for: the "selection of prejudiced interlocutors' ', ' 'opinion <iis-guised as fact", the "non-
reporting of significant Middle East news as an indication of bias", and "mis-statements of fact." -
CBC does not suffer from an overall anti-Israel bias, he says, but "certain programs -primarily on radio - tend to consistentiy reflect anti-Is^ reel prejudices of producers and script writers."
CBC executives, he adds, have either dismissed the CIC's case in the past or have viewed it with "polite scorn", because they consider the committee a lobbying group with a partisan viewrpoint.
But, in the last few wroks, he has detected a concern for, balanced coverage and the. use of Israeli correspondents based with Israeli publican . tiohs, m the current affairs productions.
"The CBC's attitiide," he remariced, "is that Jews articulate well that they are an integrated segment of the public with sufficient lobbying power. And, they tell you, Israel gets a fairer hearing than the Arab case:"
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