2 — THE BULLETIN — Thursday. January 25,1990
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JERUSAt^^^ Simcha Dinitz now believes tMt up to a quarter million Sb^et Jews will immigrate to Israel in the next three to four years.
Dinitz, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewfeh Agency Executives, revised his estiniiate upward from 100,000 after visiting Moscow to attend the founding conference of the Congress of Jewish Organizations and Communities in the USSR. After addressing the conference, he said he found a
favorable atmosphere for aliyah.
He. said Israel has sent out aboiit 360,000 invitations, whidi Soviet Jews need to :apply for exit permits from the Soviet authorities. They attest to family reunification being the reason fbr^eini-: jgration.
Dinitz said priority with respect to the documents should be given to Jews in some Soviet Central Asian republics, where there haye been reports of anti-Semitic incidents. -— jta
import concept Isali wet
TEL AVIV — Israel is considering importing sweet water from Turlcey in huge plastic bags in view of a possible fresh water shortage due to below-normal precipitation in recent years.
The unusual idea has been discussed by officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Israel Water Commission.—
An Israeli plastics factory would fabricate immense semi-flexible bags, nearly 800 feet long and shaped like the hull of a ship. They would be towed to Turkish ports, filled with potable water and towed back to Israel in a regular ferry service. ~ ~ ,
Since sweet water is lighter than salt water, the heavily laden bags would float at sea. The estimated cost of the project is in the millions of dollars, but it would be less expensive than the construction of giant desalination units.
the idea is no more bizarre than one entertained by Saudi Arabia some years ago to tow polar icebergs to Saudi ports and pump off the water as they melted. \/7vi
Israel Philharmonic rehearses pair of Richard Wagner pieces
TEL AA'IV — Should an artist's works be judged by his ideology?
That vexing question was addressed by Daniel .Baren-boim, the internationally -fatmjus—Israeli-bofn—eoneert-
pianist and conductor, after he took the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on a musical "read through" of two pieces by Richard Wagner during a rehearsal. —
Wagner is rarely performed before audiences in Israel, by the IPO or any other group, because of his anti-Semitism and his music's influence on Nazi ideology. But Baren-boim, a foremost expert on the German composer, thinks the Israeli public and musicians alike are missing out.
Wagner's works were of extreme importance to the development of modern music, and any respectable orchestra needs to know something of their history, Barenboim told a news conference here. "Wagner died in 1883, long before the Nazis, who only 50 years later misused his ideas and his music for their own nationalistic purposes,^ said Barenboim, presently conductor and musical director of the Berlin Symphoiiy Orchestra.
■ IsraelSun
BEN-GURION AIRPORT was destination of Jewish Agency executive chairman Simcha DInltz, who came to see how wave off Soviet immigrants are being received. Dinitz holds hwo newcomers: Eien (left), ffrom Azerbaijan, and Sofia (right)/lrom Moscow.
Prof. Griff rapped for latest bigotry
"It's true,^ he was an anti-Semite. But so were Mussorgsky, Chopin and many others," Barenboim observed.
He agreed, however, that Wagner should not be "forced "downrther throats^Hsraeli,sr: who do not wish his music included in regular subscription concerts.
When Zubin Mehta, the Indian-born conductor of the IPO, first performed Wagner at a subscription concert here in 1981, fistfights broke out in the audience.
The experiment has not been repeated. But Barenboim suggested that some Wagner could be included in special concerts, and thus had the IPO "rehearse" two Wagnerian works, solely for the pleasure and experience.
A few score auditors were in the hall when it pierformed the Funeral March from Gotter-Jammerung and the overture to Tristan and Isolde.
Before he raised his baton, Barenboim offered to excuse anyone whqjiight be offended. Only one member of the orchestra, veteran violinist Avraham Melamed, left the hall. He had been in a concentration camp as a boy. JTA
By ALLISON KAPLAN
NEW YORK— An upcoming solo album by a member of the rap music group Public Enemy is expected to further heighten the controversy ~which~already^surroimds-the rap group.
The album by Richard Griffin, who uses the stage name "Professor Griff," contains a song which is a verbatim repetition of Gfiffirfs interview mth the Washington Times last May, according to Debbie Bennetts, the publicist for Luke Skywalker Records, Griffs album producer.
in the controversial May 9 interview with Times reporter David Mills, Griffin maintained, among other things, that Jews were "jesponsible for the majority Of wickedness that goes on across the globe," that they "have a grip on America" and "a tight grip on our brothers in South Africa." ri^t the time of that interview, no anti-Spmitic ideology had found its way into Public Enemy's highly popular music, which generally contains strongly worded messages of black nationalism and black pride. But this month, in a new Public Enemy single called "Welcome to theTerror-dome," there are lines which imply that during the controversy over Griff, the "sp-called chosen" people crucified Public Enemy, "just like Jesus."
Both the Anti-Defamation
Moscow Jewish film lest In works
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Berl attended sytiagdgue but was the last to arrive and usually the first t6 leave. One day the Rabbi scolded him: "It doesn't look good that I should spend an hour davening while it takes you only I $ minirtes;" V
>*ButRab!>i^* rcplied[ BerI/*you have so much to be thankful for? Your lai^hous^;ypuriiew car, your silverware, your fancy dishes.
"But look at me. I have a nagging wife, eight children and a skinnygoat And so iriyprayei's are very simple: *Wife,children, goat'— and Tm finished."
Jewish film festival, scheduled to take place in Moscow from Mar. 24 to 31, will offer 25 of the best contemporary Jewish-subject films worldwide. ~ ^
The program will include Louis Malle's Au Revoir ies Enfants (France); Joan Mick-lin Silver's Crossing Delancey and Hester Street '(U.S.A.); Agnieska Holland's. Angry Harvest (West Germany); Eli Cohen's The Summer oj Aviya(Israel); and Alexander Askoldov's Commissar (USSR).
The festival will include round-table discussions and receptions. Its organizers hope the event will strengthen the revival of Jewish culture, will stretch the limits of glas^ nost and will be open to all, regardless of religion or political beliefs.
League of B'nai B'rith in New York and the Simon Wies-enthal Center in Los Angeles have protested the lyrics of the Public Enemy song to executives of CBS Records, the album's distributor. But to
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center, the lyrics contained in "Welcome to the Terrordbme" pale in comparison to the prospect of a musical rendition of Griffs interview.
Cooper said Griffin's album will make anti-Semitic views appear not- only acceptable but attractive to his young fans. "That there will be thousands singing (Griffin's) Nazilike slogans is nota good way to start the new year," Cooper said.
Griffin will release his new rap album, titled Pawns in the Game, on Feb. 21.
Cooper called Griffin's decision to do a musical rendition of the interview, sung by the professor's fellow rapper Luke Skywalker, "a cynical attempt to cash in on the controversy." But Bennetts, publicist for the Miami-based Luke Skywalker Records, contended that the album "is not cashing in on the controversy at all; it's confronting it."
Putting the interview on the album was an opportunity for Griffin to present his point of
view, Bennetts said.
Griffin cited books from the research library of the Rev. Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, including Henry Ford's The International Jew, as the sources for his assertions in the Washington Times interview.
Griffin told MTV on Nov. 8 that Pawns in the Game would "tell his side of the story" about the interview. Other than the MTV interview. Griffin has remained relatively inaccessible to the press after speaking to the Washington Times,
After many Jewish groups and music critics condemned Griff s comments in the newspaper last spring. Public Enemy's leader. Chuck Riden-hour, or "Chuck D," made a public apology and suspended Griff from the group. In the heat of the controversy, Public Enemy temporarily disbanded, but regrouped less than a month later.
At that time, Griff was rein* stated, but was moved from serving as the group's "Minister of Information" to acting as its "Supreme Allied Chief of Community Relations." His new position involves liaison work between Public Enemy and the black community, with a special emphasis on reaching out to black youth.
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Remotercontrolbomb
TEL AVIV ---Security sources areconcemed over an incident whereby for the fii-st time, a remote-cohtfolied explpsiye, a device f^ored by ^terror groups in southern Lebanon, was tised iiiside Israel. The reiiu>te-^<^tirb) roadside bomb damaged a car but did not hurt its dnyer; 27-year-old NavaGotc^ik^w^^ wasi seven months pregiiiaiit.; .
IDF Gracking dow^
JERUSALEM ^ More than 100 Ramallah-area residents were detained and the homes of foiir of therii wfcre sealed off as security, forces cracked down on rimifiuid activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: According to military sources, many of the detainees aire Paiestinian Arabs sUspected of violerite against fellow Arabs they believied were collaborating with Israeli authorities.
Soviets lose ground
TEL AVIV — Two Soviet cargo planes were refused landing rights at Ben-Gurion Airport, depriving Soviet consumers of Israeli fresh fruits and vegetables they were supposed to pick up. An Israeli agriculture ministry spokesman said the landings were banned because Transport Minister Moshe Katsav was angry over the Soviet government's failure to approve a joint service agreement reached between El Al and Aeroflot, the Soviet national airline.
Russians count NX council told
NEW YORK — New York city council was urged not tp forget newly arrived Soviet immigrants in next year's deceiinial census by the city..
Dr. Martin Hochbaum, director of American Jewish Congress' Commission on National Affairs, warned th^t failure to include these, new Americans could result in the city losing political representation and public services and "programs.
Hochbaum estimated that past undercouhts may have cost the city $20 miliibn annually.
MINIATURE SOLDIER is most unusual conscript in army of Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin. "Member" of Golani brigade, presented to him by its builders, took six months to construct and won second-place medal at French model exhibition.
Neo-Njzis marcli in West Germany
BONN — About 80 neo-Nazis carrying anti-Jewish banners marched through the West German city of Gottin-gen, shouting, "Foreigners out."
The marchers, who belong to an extreme right-wing group called the German Freedom Workers Party, were confronted by 500 coun-terdemonstrators. Heavily reinforced police kept the two groups apart.