Israel Sun
EIGHTY ARAB AND JEWISH WOliAEN cooked together and their children played together at Ramat Hasharon Matnas (community centre). In photo, reading a story together.
Pollard letters all censored
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Howard Kaplan doesn't believe charges that Jonathan Pollard tried to send out top secret information from his prison cell, and to make his point the writer of Middle East spy novels has gone public with a censored letter he received from Pol-lard six years ago.
Kaplan acted after outgoing Defense Secretary Les Aspin notified President Clinton last month that Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for passing U.S. Intelligence secrets to Israel, tried to slip out additional classified and top secret data
in 14 letters from prison.
Pollard's letter to Kaplan, one of 15 since his conviction seven years ago, contained references to a Soviet missile and a joint U.S.Israeli missile project, with some sentences whited-out by Navy censors.
"My point (in going public) was that everything Pollard sent out was being censored, that Pollard and everybody else knew that, and therefore there was no possibility that anything would actually leak out," Kaplan said.
"It would have been insane for him to try to send out any military information."
Indeed, Pollard agreed as part of his plea bargain that all his correspondence would be monitored by the. government.
Kaplan also pointed out that all 15 letters he had received from Pollard were postmarked from Washington, rather than from his prison location, further indicating tight censorship by U.S. Naval Intelligence.
Aspin's memo to Clinton, supposedly confidential but quickly leaked to the news media, appears to be another move in ongoing efforts to influence Clinton's decision on clemency for Pollard.
POLLARD — Page 11
Hoi Ha Kehiila' Israel Month
Federation Puli-Oiat Sectiof^ Page S
Candlelighting: Friday, January 14,4:23 p.m.
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VOL. LXi, NO. 2
THURSDAY, JANUARY 13,1994
1 SHEVAT 5754
NEW YORK (JTA) — The deadline by which all Syrian Jews were to have
received permission to leave the country has come and gone, but U.S. officials
and Jewish groups are still hopeful that Syrian President Hafez Assad will
honor his pledge to grant travel visas to all Jews who want them.
Assad had promised U.S. community, Assad sharply with the Syrian leader.
reined in the issuing of travel
Secretary of State Warren Christopher in early December that all Jews wishing to leave Syria would be permitted to do so by the end of 1993.
Since then, a reported 350 of Syria's roughly 1,350 Jews have received travel visas, issued at a rate of 20 to 30 a day.
"We have seen very good progress on that, and the progress is continuing," State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said in Washington.
"We expect that all those who wish to obtairi travel documents will obtain them in the days ahead," he said.
After decades in which travel was extremely limited for the 3,500 Jews then living in Syria, Assad announced a policy of free travel in April 1992.
While more than 2,000 Jews have left the country, most moving to join Brooklyn's large Syrian Jewish
permits beginning in October. Since then, only a handful of Jews have left each week.
Besides the failure to issue travel permits to all Jews who requested them, advocates for Syrian Jews have another concern about the current process.
"There are certain families where one or two children have not yet received" travel documents, in effect keeping the entire family in Syria, said Judy Feld Cam chair of the Nationa] Task Force for Syrian Jews of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
"Assad is certainy stringing out the process," said Seymour Reich, who heads a similar task force of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
"He's testing the patience of Clinton," he said, referring to the American President's upcoming meeting
Reich nonetheless expressed optimism in a statement jointly issued with Alice Harary, chair of the Council for the Rescue of Syrian Jewry.
"We expect that the government of Syria will live up to its promise in the coming days, and we will continue to closely monitor developments," the statement said.
In the statement, the groups welcomed the reports that **several hundred Syrian Jews have received exit permits in recent days."
But they voiced regret that "the Syrian government did not adhere to its commitment to the Clinton (administration that all of the approximately 1,350 Syrian Jews who wished to leave would be processed by Dec. 31, 1993."
Privately, American Jewish advocates for Syrian Jewry are giving the Syrians SYRIAN JEWS — Page 12
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By PETER CAULFIELD
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The single most critical issue facing the Jewish Family Service Agency is maintaining adequate funding for its programs.
That was the message that a sombre Jack Lutsky, JFSA president, left with those at the organization's 1993 annual general meeting.
An audience of 100 attended the Dec. 7 meeting at Temple Sholom, which also saw the election of the board of directors.
In his report, Lutsky pointed out the seriousness of the situation facing JFSA.
"Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of time to make a decision. The new board will have to grapple with some difficult decisions very early in its term."
Lutsky's message was reiterated in the treasurers' report, submitted by Ellen Dearnley and Chuck Diamond. The 1993 fiscal year has been troubling and disappointing, they reported.
For the first time in JFSA's history., the agency ran an operating deficit of $20,700 on revenues of $640,500.
Although revenues went up, they were not enough to cover the increase in expenditures.
A 33 percent increase in program feesand an 18 percent jump indona-tions and bequests were the main
sources of the revenue increase, noted Dearnley and Diamond..
A 13 percent increase in salaries and benefits, the result of increased staff time, a new RRSP plan and modest raises, account for the increase in expenditures.
Services for Seniors, likewise, finished its first full operating year in the red, with a deficit of $8,200.
On a happier note, the New Connections Program ran a surplus of $19,300 due to the agency's success in securing provincial and federal government grants totalling $58,300.
The cautionary tales contained in the president and treasurers reports were echoed by executive director Barry Corrin.
Corrin noted that 1993 had been both an exciting and frustrating year for J FS A. On the one hand, the agency helped welcome nine families from war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina to Vancouver. On the other hand, it faced its first-ever operating deficit.
The executive director pointed out the demographic sources of the organization's financial problems.
"The challenges faced this year by J FS A staff are directly related to the increased strains felt by many fam-lies in our community," said Corrin.
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A BIG THAMK YOU: Sarajevo Committee representatives from various synagogues and a school were thanked by JFSA for helping refugee families. Back row, from left: JFSA executive director Barry Corrin; Anne Goldberg and Trudi Ben Ami (Schara Tzedeck); Eleanor Boyie (Or Shalom); Laurie Bertrand (Talmud Torah); David Schwartz (Temple Sholom). Front row, from left: Maomi Wilson (Eitz Chaim); Sharon Isaacson (Beth Hamid-rash); Abe Rosenbaum (Beth Israel); JFSA board president Jack Lutsky.
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