Media Focus
MEDIA FOCUS American Jewish Leaders Must Aggressively Support Electoral Reform in Israel The pages of moment have not been the only platform for debate about Israel's electoral system in recent...
...Intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles is now as American as strawberry-rhubarb pie," Fran Schumer writes in her April 2 New York magazine article, "Star-Crossed...
...It is a denial of a basic right...
...April 1990), that doubt can now be dispelled...
...The Regardie's investigation concludes that "First American may have good reason to suppress their names—not because some customers and employees may be prejudiced against Arabs in general, but because some Americans may take a dim view of some of these particular Arabs...
...John's Hospice in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem during the week before Easter, everyone from Mayor Kollek to leading American Jewish organizations condemned the move...
...The crisis of absorbing the Soviet Jews is being prolonged, said Schorsch, by the "deferential silence" of the leaders of America's Jewish community...
...In a statement to the press, Zayed said that "Israel is our number one enemy, and America is our number two enemy...
...The rate of yeridah (emigration) over the past few years has remained stable, however, and was more serious in the 1950s and 1960s...
...Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, along with several members of his family, has the largest stake in First American, owning 20-30 percent of the company's stock...
...Political wisdom" is often the last refuge of the faint of heart...
...Thanks to the exodus, the moment of demographic truth will be postponed until at least 2010...
...In retrospect the fuss seems ludicrous...
...Adham was the head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence organization for more than a decade...
...Without a government, Israel is leaving in the hands of an ineffective bureaucracy the enormous problems connected with the immigration of Soviet Jews...
...Bank Tries to Hide Arab Ownership First American Bankshares, the largest bank holding company in the nation's capital, has gone to great lengths to prevent the names and identities of its largely Arab owners—including some with connections to the PLO—from becoming public knowledge, according to Larry Gurwin in Regardie's, a Washington-based business magazine...
...A large number of those leaving are doing so in order to study further, to acquire experience in their field or to travel...
...Schorsch called on the American Jewish leadership to "include aggressive support for electoral reform" on its agenda...
...In Notes and News ("The Beauty in Compromise," June 1990) Hyman Bookbinder was identified as Washington Representative Emeritus of the American Jewish Congress...
...In addition, Adham was "a close advisor to the royal palace and a high-ranking government official at a time when Saudi Arabia had become the largest contributor to the Palestine Liberation Organization...
...Very few Israelis should be viewed as having left Israel for good....Those who have made their fortunes abroad and established themselves in other countries may very well invest and establish second homes in Israel....While such people must be differentiated...they, too, need to be considered in the balance and future of Israel...
...Author Estelle Gilson reported that in towns such as Clarksburg, "Hadassah may be the only game in town...
...When 150 ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist Jews affiliated with the Ateret Cohanim Ye-shivah occupied St...
...MEDIA FOCUS American Jewish Leaders Must Aggressively Support Electoral Reform in Israel The pages of moment have not been the only platform for debate about Israel's electoral system in recent months (see "Not Whether, But How To Reform Israel's Electoral System,"June 1990...
...Berman says that members of his synagogue maintain an active religious, philanthropic and social calendar...
...There was at least as much objection to the establishment of a yeshivah and a couple of dozen Jewish homes in the Moslem Quarter a few years ago...
...Should they decide that the owners are objectionable people...they might well decide not to deal with the company" Corrections David Berman, president of Tree of Life Synagogue in Clarksburg, West Virginia, informed us of an error in "Will Today's Womanjoin Hadassah...
...Who are the owners of First American and why the secrecy surrounding their identities...
...For 1989 the overall average per capita gift was $129, in Cleveland $385 and in New York City $74.—Ed...
...Most Israelis who leave the country are males between the ages of 24 and 35 who feel they have very little opportunity for success in Israel...
...To claim that asserting this right is politically unwise is irrelevant...
...I would hate to have this book viewed as antisemitic because it is about antisemitism...
...Approximately 34,000 professionals with graduate degrees are jobless in Israel, according to a recent report of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs...
...As in France and the United States, "one party might win the Knesset and the other the premiership, perpetuating the standoff and the corruption," said Norden...
...among them are several that deal with Jews and have stirred accusations of antisemitism, according to the New York Times...
...It was even blamed for triggering the intifada...
...Lawyers for First American have claimed that the Arab owners have no influence on the operations of the company...
...The influx of Soviet Jews has in fact allowed politicians to continue the "government of national paralysis," Norden added...
...Jerusalem Post Makes U-Turn If you had any doubt that the Jerusalem Post would dramatically change its editorial policy under its new ownership (see 'The Jerusalem Post: Transformation or Disintegration...
...Even in mainline American families like the Kennedys (Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg) or the Roosevelts (Laura Delano Roosevelt and Charles Silberstein) intermarriage signals growing ethnic tolerance, says Schumer...
...She finds that the more widespread intermarriage becomes, the less likely the option of conversion is chosen...
...During his tenure," said Regardie's, "political opponents of the ruling al-Saud family were tortured or killed...
...Is "Marrying Out" In...
...In one case, the lawyers of First American "persuaded the Federal Reserve Board to withhold from the public all documents that listed the company's shareholders...
...First American, with $11.5 billion in assets, was bought out from its American owners by the Arab investors in 1982...
...Every wave of aliyah (immigration) since 1952 has brought with it a corresponding, and equal, wave of yeridah, maintaining the population rate, according to the report...
...The leading individual owner is the Saudi Arabian Kamal Adham, who maintains 15-25 percent of First American...
...Potential customers and employees also have a legitimate interest in knowing who owns First American...
...Ariel Sharon's move into a flat in the Moslem Quarter caused an international uproar...
...Many of the characters are Jewish and, in the novel, that produces a virulent antisemitic backlash...
...In Book of Numbers (June 1990), we listed the average per capita gift to the United Jewish Appeal in the largest population centers as $105, the average per capita gift to the UJA in Cleveland as $301 and the average per capita gift to the UJA in New York as $67...
...February 1990...
...Many of those leaving should not be considered permanent emigrees, according to the report...
...More pessimistic about the possibilities of electoral reform is Edward Norden, who wrote in a column for the New Republic that "Even if the system is changed—something that no one should bet on—there's no guarantee that this would make Israel immediately much more governable...
...It appears that we used the 1988 figures...
...He is the ruler of tiny, oil-rich Abu Dhafi and the president of the United Arab Emirates...
...One mother of two married to a Jewish man told Schumer, "Families like ours help make the world a smaller place...
...Also, the B'nai Brith lodge has recently resumed holding monthly dinner meetings after a hiatus of several years...
...The need for electoral reform is fundamental and urgent," said Schorsch...
...While reviewer Judith Martin has taken the book to task for its antisemitic message, author Michael Thomas told the Times, "I am not an antisemite...
...The cover story paints a rosy picture of what was once a taboo topic...
...Schorsch concluded by quoting Mikhail Gorbachev: "Life itself punishes those who delay...
...Bookbinder is Washington Representative Emeritus of the American Jewish Committee...
...Schorsch contrasted their "silence in the face of today's irresponsible political stalemate" in Israel with "their loud effective protest" on the "Who Is AJew" question...
...Disagreeing with Mayor Kollek, the Jerusalem Post editorialized: There can be no place in Jerusalem or, for that matter, anywhere in the world, in which Jews are forbidden to take up residence...
...So the current influx of Soviet Jewry into Israel, the largest immigration into the state since its founding, is expected to bring another wave of yeridah, as the competition for jobs—especially professional jobs—becomes intense...
...Later, "when the company was sued by some former shareholders of its Virginia subsidiary, its lawyers asked that the jury not be told the names or nationalities of the company's owners—or even that the company was foreign-owned...
...Regardie's asks, "How can the public be assured that the owners have no influence as long as their identities remain secret...
...But despite dire predictions, the initial tension was followed by relative calm...
...Schumer interviews some archetypal baby boomers—now intermarried— who came of age during an era of ethnic diversity, expanding opportunity and increasing Jewish self-confidence...
...In The New Crowd (Little, Brown, 1989), authors Judith R. Ehrlich and Barry J. Rehfeld contrast "a new generation of 'brash and ostentatious' Jewish investment bankers with the 'understated wealth and dignfied behavior of the German Jewish investment bankers of the early 1900s.'" Who's Leaving Israel...
...In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, called on American Jewish leaders to mobilize support for Israeli electoral reform...
...The realization of this among Israeli voters and politicians will probably give most of them, rightly or wrongly, another reason not to rush into substantive negotiations with the Palestinians...
...The book causing the greatest furor is the novel, Hanover Place (Warner Books, 1990) which "in its apocalyptic ending equates takeovers with a new money-grubbing culture...
...Zayed is also a business associate of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi...
...Books Charging Greed on Wall Street Accused of Being Antisemitic A spate of recent books depict Wall Street wallowing in greed...
...Regardie's reports that "over the years Zayed has...channeled tens of millions of dollars to the PLO" and last year pledged his support for the intifada to Yasser Arafat...
Vol. 15 • August 1990 • No. 4
