2 — THE BULLETIN — Thursday. September 13,1990
NABLUS — Israeli court documents have revealed a plot l»y Arab terrorists to kid-liap Israeli housing miniister, Ariel Sharon — less than a month after the A^ew York r/mes published a feature story questioning Sharon's decision to maintain a large
had conspired to kidnap Sharon last December.
The three, who are members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah wing of the PLO, were on trial in the Nablus military court on charges of murdering an Arab resident of Nablus, possession of weapons and
contingent of personal body-   ammunition, and conspiracy
guards.
The Times report/which ran as the cover story of the times Sunday Magazine, was written by Joel Brinkley, the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief. The report began with a long introduction mocking the number of bodyguards that Sharon maintains.
But documents made public in the trial of three Arab terrorists disclosed that the three
to kidnap Sharon.
The court documents reveal that the leader of the group, Aiiwar Muslamani, carried out surveillance on Sharon's apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem to track the minister's movements and deter-niine when he would be most vulnerable. Muslamini was still plotting the kidnapping when he and his two comrades were seized in connection with the Nablus murder.
WOMEN SOLDIERS from "Nahal" take sociology course at Tel>vlv university school of social studies to learn how to help and understand recent Immigrants. Plans call for soldier-students to act as social workers In Israeli absorption centres after graduation.
AIDS-consciousness brou
Kidnap suspect captured
JERUSALEM — A kidnap suspect who escaped from a Jerusalem jail on Aug. 9 has been recaptured in Bethlehem in what security forces described as a commando operation.
The fugitive, Jamal Aba-diye, 24, an East Jerusalem resident classified as '*danger-ous," offered no resistance when an army officer and three soldiers surprised him in his'hideout in a remote quarter of the town.
Abadiye was originally arrested for the attempted kidnapping of two Jewish tee-   fugitive was inside.
nagers who hitched a ride with him in July. He walked out of the detention centre after being left unsupervised in a room where a hole had been cut in the wall for an air condi-tioner. Evading a guard posted outside, .Abadiye hailed a taxi and drove to Bethlehem, where he dyed his hair blond and shaved his moustache.
Security forces apparently traced him through informants and staked out the house where he was said to be hiding. They entered only when they were certain the
JTA
By WINSTON PICKETT
SAN FRANCISCO — When San Francisco native Danny Kent immigrated to Israel in 1988, he knew his fight to bring AIDS awareness to the public would be difficult — and he was right.
Kent knew, for example, that most Israelis, like their American counterparts, do not want to face how easily the disease is transmitted. He also knew AIDS education in Israel lags far behind that of the United States.
In a country that seems to be reeling almost daily from some national or international political crisis, AIDS just isn't a national priority. That is especially so, said
Kent, be'cause only a narrow segment of the population^ is deemed to be at risk.
"Some 90 Israelis are known to have full-blown cases of AIDS," he said, "but statistically, one person in every 1,000 is estimated to be infected with the AIDS virus. That's 5,000 walking time bombs."
Add which
AIDS is a Diaspora disease you can't get if you have sex with a law-abiding person"; where there is only one anonymous test site in the country; and where a governmental report revealed that 43 percent of Israeli 17-year-olds have engaged in sexual activ-
to that a climate in "most Israelis think
OPEFO^TION
Radio network planned for ollm
The Israel Broadcasting Authority plans to establish a new radio network to help Soviet inimigrants integrate into Israeli life. Minister of Education and Culture Zevu-lun Hammer promised that it would broadcast Hebrew lessons, lectures on Jewish festivals, traditions and Israel's geography. The network, to broadcast in Russian, could provide jobs for immigrant journalists, he suggested.
Jews Still fear anti'Semltlsm
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which once assisted Jews escaping from Czarist pogroms, ha§ published a paper analyzing why Jews are fleeing the Soviet Union today. It's not fear of
state-sponsored anti-Semitism, but fear that the state is too weak to protect them from grassroots anti-Semitism, says a study by Zvi Gitelman, a Sovietologist. He notes that Soviet Jews perceive themselves more vulnerable to anti-Semitism than at any*^ time since Stalin launched his anti-Semitic campaign over 40 years ago.
Immigrants given medical training
Newly-arrived Soviet immigrants to Israel are receiving free medical training from
Magen David Adorn to obtain licences to drive buses or taxis. The Israel transportation ministry requires all public vehicle drivers to pass a first aid test. At the Rehovot
RUSSIAN MOTHER, her two son^ Jind pet poodle shortly after their arrival at Ben-Gurion airport.
MDA station, 16 immigrants took part in a 20-hour first aid -course, the first such course taught entirely in Russian.
Ahtl'Semlte lands In Moscow court
The prosecution by a Moscow court of an avowed anti-Semite for inciting hostility against Jews "sets an important precedent," said Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman. Konstantin Smirnov-Osta-shvili, a charismatic Russian ultra-nationalist leader, is accused of organizing a group which interrupted a political forum of liberals last January in Moscow.
The special emergency campaign — Operation Exodus — Is being conducted by the Jewish Federation In conjunction with the Combined Jewish Appeal.
A funny thing happened . • •
Durihg Rosh Hashana services, a Baai TefiHah who enyoyed baseball becamecurious about his favorite team, the Cubs, who were playing the Blue Jays. He couldn't watch the game, so he asked his son (who didn't observe Yom Tov strictly) to relay the score at appropriate breaks.
"And how are the Cubsdoing?"he whisperjcd to his son. "The Jays are leading 2-0 at the top of the third," the youngster replied. The Baai Tefillah sang," Sh'ma Israel. . "
Some time later in the service, he asked his son, "How are the Cubs?" "At the middle of the seventh, they're down 7-0." ''Aleinuleshabeiach . .." the Baal Tefillah chanted.
Later still, he wondered, "Ww. how are the Cubs doing?" "Game over, the Jays beat 'em 15 to nothing." " Yisgadal v'yiska-dash shmei rabba . .
Ukrainian 'JewsMook for ol tl faith
T^L_AVIV— Hundreds of^ Ukrainian villagers claiming Jewish ancestry are seeking conversion back to the Jewish faith so they can immigrate to Israel, Ma'ariv reported.
The newspaper said the applicants appealing to the Moscow rabbinical court are descendants of Romanian^ Jews who moved into the southern Ukraine a century ago and converted to Christianity.
Ma'ariv quoted Rabbi Pin-chas  Goldschmidt, teacher
and leaden of the Steinsaltz Yeshiva in Moscow and head of a rabbinical court in Israel, as saying the Ukrainians have shown proof of Jewish ancestry.
"They have names like Rosen and Schwartz. Today, they are atheists and very distant from Judaism. 1 gave them books on the subject and asked them to read so that they could get an idea of what is involved," the rabbi said.
. JTA
ity. Therein lie the makings of a potential crisis, said Kent.
In some cases, he said, even attempts to publicize how easily AIDS is passed among heterosexual and homosexual populations alike have been thwarted by fiscal constraints. Last year, for example, the Israeli education and culture ministry commissioned a 46-page booklet on AIDS prevention for high schools, only to run out of funds for distribution.
"It's extremely unfortunate," said the 31 -year-old Tel Aviv resident, "because Israel is one of the most well-read, information-hungry countries in the world. What's needed is something to raise the average Israeli's AIDS-consciousness."
In an ambitious effort taking place in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, groups of local and Israeli sii|>porters are seeking to raise more than $30,000 to bring sections of the 11,000-panel* 13-ton, hand-sewn AIDS memorial quilt to the Jewish state later this year. "Wherever the quilt has gone, it has proven to be a powerful, mass means of helping people get through the barriers of ignorance and stereotyping about the disease," said Kent, a member of the Israel AIDS Task Force and the San Francisco-based Friends of the Names Project-Israel Tour.
Earlier this year, Kent and other members of the tour's organizing committee gave a private showing of several panels from the huge tapestry, which is embroidered with items of personal clothing and other memorabilia of friends or relatives who died of AIDS. "We showed it to teenagers, doctors, lay people, Arabs and Jews alike, and everyone got the message — that the disease is a killer and can infect anyone," said Kent.
In _San Francisco, former Names Project educational outreach coordinator and tour committee member Nancy Katz reported that the effort, which has raised $10,000 so far, has the backing of the_American Jewish Congress and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
Sorihern California Jenish Bulletin/JTA
Wmrtermnews
NEW YORK Steven Ochs. a 20-year-old reporter at the Delaware Couniy Daily 7y/m^v, is the winner of the .American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Smolar Student Journalism Award.
7 / V
Navy sub-Standard?
TEL AVIV — The navy, which chalked up an impressive record recently sinking a terrorist-nianried rubber dinghy, will be reduced to "a virtual coast guard" unless it gets new submarines, according to navy commander Adm. Micha Ram.
Homeless get tents
JERUSALEM - Rishon LeZion mayor Meir Nitzan, who had threatened to eject 16 homeless families protesting high housing costs from their tents near city hall, has agreed to give them larger tents with toilet facilities 50 metres from the old site.
Disabled show ability
JERUSALEM — Bouquets of roses greeted the Israeli team at Ben-Gurion Airport on its return from the world championships for handicapped athletes in Holland . The Israelis won four gold and 18 silvierand bronze medals at the games.
Epithets sprayed on Moscow shul
NEW YORK — The Great Choral synagogue — the most prominent symbol of Jewish life in Moscow — was spray-painted with anti-Semitic epithets and swastikas, the Anti-Defamation League has learned.
Details of the desectation were communicated from officials of Vaad, the umbrella group of Soviet Jewry organizations, to ADL, which decried the desecration as an "outrageous act."
*     ♦ *
Gulf crisis splits Frerichfsir right
PARIS — The extreme right wing in France is of two minds with respect to Israel's role in the Persian Gulf crisis.
The far-right weekly Minute charged Israel provoked it to further its own interests. But Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the blatantly racist National Front, paid tribute to what he called Israel's "intelligent and moderate position" of keeping out of the conflict.
Shamir toreceive Jabotlnsky award
NEW YORK — The Jabo-tinsky Foundation will present Israeli jprime minister Yitzhak Shamir with its 1990 Defender of Jerusalem Award, foundation chairman Eryk Spector announced here.
Shamir will . receive the $100,000 award at a reception here Dec. 10. The annual award is presented to individuals deserving worldwide recognition for their outstanding action in defence of the rights of the Jewish people;, Spektorsaid.