OFFICIAL FIRED FOR CRITIGIZINO CHORCH COUNCIL
NEW YORK - The Anti-E>efainati6n League of B'nai B'rith has expressed concern over the firing of a proininent Protestant official of the Reformed Church in America for charging the National Council pif Churches (NCC) with conducting a '^persistent anti-Israel propaganda campaign.**
The clergyman. Rev. Isaac A. Rottenberg, who for 10 years had served as communications director to the Reformed Church, stated that "every NCC governing board meeting has been preceded by internal bureaucratic power plays aimed at criticizing Israel.**
He added that whenever "concerns were raised in the council
about anti-Semitism, the Holocaust or the emergence of neo-Nazi movements, attempts have been made to trivilize or to neutralize them...**
* Rottenberg*s statement was made in a letter to a New York City newspaper, in which he questioned the fairness and objectivity of the NCC on matters relating to Jeiws and to Israel and called for a "loyal opposition to speak up.**
A native of The Hague, the Netherlands, Rottenberg and his wife are Christian survivors of the Holocaust. His father died in a concentration camp. Rottenberg served as chairman of the steering
committee for the NCC*s Office of Christian-Jewish Relations from the inception of that office four years ago.
Rottenberg charged that-"a few people within the NCC have been determined to exploit the processes of the organization for their own propagandistic purposes.** He defined his role within the NCC as that of a "critic from within who raised questions regarding how these statements on the Middle East came about.**
Acknowledging that his dismissal arose out of a desire on the part of some NCC officials to silence him, Rottenberg said, "My great disap-
pointment about the Council is that, with all its; liberal statements, it lacks the capacity for self-criticism which is essential to true liberalism.**
Rabbi David H. Panitz, chairman of ADL*s interreligious cooperation committee, noting that Rottenberg was dismissed soon after the newspaper statement appeared, said, "We are shocked at attempts to silence an important voice of conscience and integrity within the ranks of Protestant denominational leadership.**
The general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, Dr. Arie Brouwen, had maintained that Rottenberg was fired due to "recent tension.'*
Panitz said that Rottenberg took the lead in questioning the continued membership of Archbishop Valerian Trifa on the NCC board ojf governors while the former Rumanian Iron Guard leader was the subject of deportation hearings in Federal Court.
Trifa had already been charged by the ADL and other human rights organizations with involvement in war crimes and anti-Semitic activities in Rumania during World War II.
The Reformed Church in America is one of 31 Christian groups 'within the National Council of Churches.
SHABBAT SHALOM — THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1978 — AV 14, 5738
Vol. XLV, N6. 31
$18.75 per year, this is^e 30(
begin: sai^^^ MEET^in IMRiy^
WASHINGTON —^^fc el Prime Minister Be^n, Egyptian President Sada? and President Carter will hold a Labor Day weekend meeting at Camp David, Maryland. The announce^ ment of the Israeli-Egyp^ tian summit was made here following the return from tlie Middle-East of U.S. ^;f^efcrietary ^.of^Sta^e Cyrus Vance. Cairo rac^io si^ed that the summit's siiccess "depends on Israel discarding its outmoded concepts about security and peace.'* The PLO and Arab hardliners from Syria and Jordan swiftly denounced. the meeting. as an "imperialist trick'* to launch a surprise: war on the Arabs.
By SIMONE MEYSELS
VIENNA — Private negotiations have taken place in Vienna for the exchange of Anatoly Sharansky and other Jailed Soviet dissidents" in exbhange for Soviet United Nations employees accused ;of spying in :the United StatesiJl^^Kas reyealed, heie.
Apparently, several patties are involved. One. is a four-member Israeli team, headed by Aviva Rubin, sent to' Vienna by Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, the controversial Knesset member who won immunity from extradition to France to face charges of tax evasion ^nd fraud, by his election to the Knesset last year.
An East German lawyer, Wolf-
gang Vogel, is involved on the other side. Vogel took part in the talks before -the release in April of an Israeji^etained in Mozambique, an
^American student held in East Germany; and an East German agent jailed iii the United States.'
^ ,^',flattdrSharonplayedab^gpartin . 0ese,.«arIiei:..^l^lW- wimU^ibstpeA^^ release the Israeli, Myron Marcus^ ^ 23-year-old engineer, who was detained for 20 moi^ths in Mozant-l^que after making a forced landing in his aircraft in a/storm.
One of those working for Sharansky's release is* Ronald Greenwald, a New York Orthodox rabbi who recently met with Wolfgang Vogel. Others attempting to actualize :the. exchange are
Shabtai Kalmanowitz, an Israeli; and Republican Representative Benjamin Oilman, of New York.
Asked about the: chances of arranging the release of and othec. r; refuscniks. Rabbi. Greenwald said in New York, "Jews arc peopl^^gi^^l^ean a IHtle
He said ^W^^^ad;*^limited contact^ with Ainerican'officials who were aware. ^ofhi6 efforts. He said that 0r« Vdgefwas presumed to be doing the same on his side. (ContuBued onps^e 5) see AID SHARANSKY
BEGIN PLEASED
JERUSALEM — PriiineMinisteir Nfeiiachem Begin expressed satis-facitibn that "the^^ that Israel is noi^htraiisigerit has begun to dawn'! in:>^prld pre ;
, ".9- 7- ■* •■^'.■■■■,7 - :' ■ ' •
JFRUSALEW—^Soviet J^^ emigrants should be flown directly from Russia to Israel to eliminate *dropout' problem, Jewish Agency aliyah department head Raphael' Kotlowitz^ stated following study trip to Europe.
JERUSALEM— An overall plan for development of the Arab community in Israer was submitted to Premier Menachem' Begin* l>y • ad-, wj^mjm .Ajrab. Affairs, 0£,..Moshe Sharon^ .
EXTAA BUDGET
JERUSALEM ^ A IL28B supplement to 1978-79 state budget sailed through Knesset on its first reading.
LONDON — Fears that the "ideological successes" of neo-Nazis and aiiti-Semites "will be turned into organizational strength," are expressed in a report recently issued by the Institute of Jewish Affairs in London.
The report analyses the political strength of the National Front in Britain, which it calls the "strongest neo-Nazi force in Europe"; the National Democratic Party . and other groups in West German}^ and neo-Nazi organizations in Austria,
r
the weeks- go by slow!/ for three Moscow Jews seihtehciBCI to long prison terms for wantingto leave the country.
NUMBER OF WEEKS ALREAbV SUFFERING THE GULAG ORDEAL:
• •••••
< M
Q
M M •
^^ D
9
> E-i
E-i K <
< 2 M "^^^
< p:: X
CO M O r-l
U >
H < M CO
> >
• • • •
• • • •
jfThe Helsihkr Agreement which the Soviet government signed lallows for freedom of emigration. Let our voices — letters, iteiegrams and phone calls — express our protest to Western leaders to intercede and to the Soviets to set them free.
Italy, Spain and Belgium. *
It also looks at the international links ofthe far-Right, including the Euro-Right Movement," which was recently launched on the lines of the Eurp-Gommunists, by the "Moyimento Italiano Sociale*'; the Spanish "Fuerza Nueva"; and the French "Parti des Forces Nduvel-les."--.
Hpweyer, it does not believe that these three constituent organizations pose any great threat. .
The greatest threat, the report said, "is thecurrent*Hitler* wave and the abundance of anti-Semitic litera-; ture." During the past 10 years, the Protocols of the Biders of Zion," the notorious Tsarist forgery, has been' repubiished or serialized in Belgiuna, Finland, France, Greece, Italy and Spain.
Hitler's "MeinKampf* has been republished in Denmark, Holland, Portugal and Sweden^
The report also noted that the West German government has estimated that publications of thefar-Right press in the country have a circulation of some 250,000 copies. ^This is a much wider audience than some 18,300 members of 140 extreme Right-wing organizations in the country. JCNS.
IRANIAN TEACHERS
JERUSALEM — A group of Jewish teachers from Iran have come here for training courses for the first time.
COVER to a new FoBish edition of Dr. Janusz Korczak's well-known children*s book, Mathew the Young Kmg. It is part of.the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of the famous writer, educator and social worker whose real name was Henryli Goldszmidt and who, in 1942, perished in Trebiinka together with the 200 children of his orphanagein the Warsaw Ghetto, having refused a last minute offer of freedom in exchange for abandoning his wards. This heroic deed was commemorated by a stamp issued by Israel in 1962 and by a German playwright in *^Dr. Korczak and the Children." A lengthy press release from the Polish Einbassy in London lists a number of events which will mark the centenary bothin Poland and in other countries where the "Korczak Year" is sponsored by UNESCO. The one thing left out of the press releasees any mention that Dr. Korczak was a Jew. JCNS.
I
i
i
■t
'"- '}-171
J! I
•■ji
'■it.
i
I
4\