i
2 — THE BULLETIN — ThursdayTAugust 18,1988
UIA budgets $381 million
_ Israel Sun Photo
THE END OF A SAGA as "Baby Bruna" leaves Israel on an El Al airlinerin her Brazilian father's arms. Baby Bruna was kidnapped in Brazil in 1986. She was traced to Israel by a British TV documentary crew. The Israeli parents who adopted her unknowingly, were forced by Israel's Supreme Court to return the t¥fo-year-old girl to her Brazilian parents.
Envoy to Egypt named
TEL AVIV
Professor
Shimon Shamir, incumbent of the Kaplan Chair in history of Egypt and Israel at Tel Aviv university^ will be IsraePs next Ambassador to Egypt. Prof. Shamir*s appointment has been officially confirmed by - the Egyptian government and he is expected to begin his new post towards the end of the summer.
A leading authority on history of the Arab world, Shamir was the founder and first chairman of Tel Aviv university's department of Middle Eastern and African history. He founded and served as the first director of the Shiloah Center for Research on the Middle East and Africa (now part of the Dayan Center) and headed the University's Aranne graduate school of history from 1973 to 1976.
He  founded  the Israeli
Academic Center in Cairo, serving as its first director from 1982 to 1984. The Center, located in Cairo, serves as an important link between Israelland Egyptian academic communities, fostering intellectual exchange and mutual understanding via combined research projects, lectures, seminars and meetings with scholars and students from both countries.
Bo^m in Romania, Prof. Shamir came to Palestine as a child in 1940, After military service, he graduated from the Hebrew university of Jerusalem, and received his Ph.D. at Princeton university.
Prof. Shamir is the second meriiber of the Tel Aviv university faculty to serve as an ambassador of Israel. Prof. Shlpmo Ben-Ami, former head of Tel Aviv university's' Aranne school of history and newly, appointed incumbent
^■-: ...r Israel Sun Photo
ONE OF ISRAEL'S leading orientalists. Prof. Shimon Shamir will be Israel's next ambassador to Egypt. Shamir teaches contemporary Middle East history at Tel Aviv university.
A funny thing happened ...
Joe E. Lewis, a night-club wit in a class by himself, once philosophized: "Show me a Jew who comes home in the evening, is greeted with a big smile, has his shoes taken off, has his pillows arranged for him, is served a delicious meal — and Til show you an alrighmik who lives in a Japanese restaurant."
LEO ROSTER, HOORAY FOR YIDDISH!
of the Elias Sourasky Chair for Ibero and Latin-American studies, is currently scrying as Israel's Ambassador to Spain.
Church condemns anti-Semitism
MOSCOW — For the first time leaders^ of the Russian Orthodox Church have denounced Russian anti-Semitism, rejecting **pogrom ideology" as something the **Russian pepple certainly do notneedJ"
Thie highest level cleric to condemn anti-Semitism was Metropolitan Vladimir, who is in charge of the Moscow Patriarchate. Anti-Seriiitic groups within the Church and Pamyat, the nationalist anti-Semitic organization received explicit criticism.
"We are categorically^ against chauvinism in all its manifestations. That is why we do -not agree with the extremist views of certain members of Pamyat," the London Jewish Chronicle quoted Vladimir.
In addition, Innokenty, a monk at the Leningrad theological seminary said he objected to Pamyat's misuse of Russian Orthodox slogans to "incite hostility and political violence."
Investigate war criminals
.LONDON — Suspected war criminals who settled in Britain after World War II will be investigated by a special team of retired police officers being set up by the government, the Daily Mail reported.
The inquiry will be headed by the former director of public prosecutions. Sir Thomas
- Hetheringtqn. He will provide names of suspects to the police
"Team to research their back^ grounds. -— Sir Thomas received 110 names in Moscow recently.' Thej^ include alleged middle-ranking SS officials who fled to' Britain from countries under Soviet control.
Other reports said the Soviet government would authorize Soviet citizens to attend and testify at any trials in Britain that might result from the investigations.
NEW YORK — Some 400 United Israel Appeal designated delegates, representing 53 American Jewish Federations, attended the 1988 Jewish Agency Assembly in Jerusalem this past summer. ~^e~ Assembly ratified a budget of $381 million for the fiscal year April 1, 1988 to March31,1989. In addition, it^ approved appropriation of up to $33 million to Project Renewal.
Despite the fact that income from this year's 1988-89 UJA/Federation Campaign will be approximately the same as last year's, the meet expected that Israeli inflation will have a serious impact on the Agency's purchasing power. This lack of funds will translate into less money available for housing new olim, slower economic development in the Galilee and Negev and cutbacks in the number of youths studying 'through Youth Aliyah.
While the Assembly was in session, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli Government signed an agreement whereby the Agency will transfer its absoiption centres to the Govemmehty during the
course of the next two years. This move will allow the Agency, working closely with immigrant associations, to focus on providing supple^ mentary social and flnancial services to new olim.
Among the more notable absorption services which the Assembly voted to implement-was ^ne to help olim start small businesses and one to create a computerized inform mation system listing work, housing and educational opportunities for olim.
The Israeli Government's decision to secure direct flights from the Soviet Union to Israel, for those Soviet Jews requesting exit permits to go to Israel, was welcomed by the Assembly.
Ten thousand pray
JERUSALEM — Fewer than 10,000 people recited prayers and the Book of Lamentations to mark the fast of Tisha b'Av in front of the Western Wall last month. In past years there have been crowds of more than 50,000 including secular observers thronging to the plaza while the observant prayed at the Wall.
Anne Frank, Margot wrote to pals
NEW YORK -r In late April 1940, a month before the Nazi invasion of Kolland,' Anne Frank and her o|der sister, Margot, were corresponding with Juanita and Betty Ann Wagiier, sisters in Danville Iowa.
Thecorrespondencefroni the Frank sisters consists of a letter and postcard Anne sent to Juanita and a letter from Margot to Betty Anne.
Those fragments, from the vanished world of nearly a half century ago, include the only known samples of Anne Frank's handwriting in English. They will be auctioned Oct. 25 by Swaiiii Galleries in New York, its president, George Lowryjaniiounced.
The correspondence Was initiated by a teacher at the Wagner girls* school in Iowa who visited Europe the summer before and collected the nanies of young people there, Anne Frank among them, for her students to write
Anne was 11 atthetimeshe wrote to Juanita. Margot, then 14, undertook on her own to write to Betty Ann Wagner. ■■■■
The letters, dated April 27 and 29, 1940, were light-hearted. There were no premonitions of the tragedy about to befall Holland and the Frank family.
Yeshiva boys exempt
JERUSALEM — A thirty-year-old arrangement permitting yeshiva students to defer their compulsory military service, was upheld in Knesset wheiv^the House rejected by 17 votes to 14 votes three bills which would have limited deferral to a maximum of four years. The deferrals have been a hot political bargaining point as both major parties vied for the; support of the strictly Orthodox.
No reception
TEL AVIV — For the first time since Egypt and. Israel established diplomatic relations in 1980, the Egyptian Embassy here has not held a reception on the^occasion of Egypt's national holiday — the anniversary of the Free Officers' Revolt in 1952. Mohammed Bassiouni, the Ambassador, said the Embassy has not celebrated the holiday, because of what he called the suffering of the Palestinians during the uprising.
Unemployment rises
JERUSALEM
Unem-
ployment rose by 20 percent in the first half of the year compared with the first six months of 1987, Moshe Katz^v, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare told Cabinet. Katzav warned that unemployment would likely worsen in the coming months as factories run into financial trouble. In June, 46,518 people registered as unemployed with the Employment Service.
Arms publication attacl(s Israel
WASHINGTON — In the
wake of a massive arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia a highly respected military affairs publication has called for reassessment of U.S.-lsrael relations, according to the London Jewish Chronicle.
Reflecting a view held in the Pentagon and other branches of the U.S. government. Defense A^^w-s published an editorial complaining of Israeli efforts to undermine U.S. arms deals with "moderate" Arab . states, including Saudi Arabia.
"The United States' arms sales policy in the Middle East is not what it should be: a central element of overall U.S. foreign policy goals," it said. "Rather, it is in large part a reflection of what Israel wants."
The British arms contracts with Saudi Arabia totalled more than $20 billion.
Israel Sun Photo
ARMAND HAMMER, philanthropist and oil millionaire. Is seen laying a cornerstone for a Jewish^Arabic Community Centre In the Ajami district of Jaffa. On Hammer's left Is ShIomoLahat, Mayor of Tel Aviv.
IVI arty rs'day
■ AJiTWERP — The Belgian governmeiit has proclaimed Septal 8 the Day of the Jewish Martyr.
The annual pilgrimage to the Dossin Barracks whence 26,000 Jews were deported to extermination camps by the Nazis will take place that day.
Only about 1,000 Belgian Jews survived the Holocaust.