INSID

E: F

AK

E A

D

BO

OK

SLA

SH

ER

H

ITLER

'S B

IRTH

PLA

CE

LE

BA

NE

SE

JEW

S

JAN

UA

RY

1995

FO

CU

S: G

ER

MA

N N

EO

-NA

ZIS

■ H

IZBO

LLAH

THR

EA

T L

ebanon's pro-lranian Hizbollah

group vowed its M

uslim m

ilitant fighters w

ould wage suicide raids

on Israeli targets worldw

ide. H

izbollah chief Sheikh N

asrallah told m

ilitants and supporters at a B

eirut mosque: "T

he Zionists are

beginning to understand that they are fighting a kind of people w

ho are not afraid of death."

■ E

INS

TEIN

T

he latest postal stamp show

ing A

lbert Einstein w

as issued this year by T

urkey, and it is the 50th portray-ing him

—in countries from

Aitutaki

to Zaire. T

he artists sometim

e give him

an exotic air—A

frican on the stam

ps from S

t. Thom

as and U

ganda, Asiatic on those from

China

and Vietnam

—and they adorn him

w

ith light beams, laboratory equip-

ment and the fam

ous E=

MC

2.

■ W

RITE

R A

TTAC

KE

D

A N

orwegian-born Jew

ish writer

slashed in an apparent anti-Sem

itic attack last year w

as beaten in her hom

e in Italy by three assailants.

Police are investigating w

hether the assault on M

aria Thaeilm

an G

eelmuyden-B

odil was religiously

motivated. S

he told authorities the attackers appeared to be neo-N

azi skinheads, w

ho harbor anti-Sem

itic and xenophobic view

s.

■ S

WA

STIK

A A

TTAC

K

Dutch police w

ere hunting for three m

en who reportedly branded a

swastika into the forehead of an

Iranian after he stopped to help them

push their stalled van.

"He w

as hit on the forehead with

something, w

e don't know w

hat," said H

aus Plat, police spokesm

an in Z

oetermeer, a w

estern Dutch city.

"He didn't discover the sw

astika until he looked in the m

irror at hom

e."

■ S

EN

TEN

CE

D

Three squad m

embers w

ho in 1993 attacked Jak K

amhi, a T

urkish busi-nessm

an and prominent figure in

the Jewish com

munity of Istanbul,

have been sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 415 m

illion Turkish

pounds each. The squad fired rock-

ets at Kam

hi's car while he w

as driving to w

ork in Istanbul.

■ S

PY

HU

NT

Argentine P

resident Menem

, speak-ing to reporters on his return from

a visit to S

yria, said that a top A

rgentine spy is in Lebanon hunting

the perpetrators of the car-bomb

attack on the Jewish center in

Buenos A

ires last July. Menem

also said that he had sought help track-ing dow

n the terrorists in his discus-sions w

ith President H

afez-al-Assad.

■ S

TAM

P A

CT

A B

razilian Jewish institute has

been honored by the Post O

ffice.

For eight days last m

onth all the correspondence distributed by the C

entral Post Office in B

elo H

orizonte, capital of the Brazilian

state of Minas G

erais, carried a special cancellation on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Jew

ish Historical

Institute of Minas G

erais.

■ S

OA

RIN

G H

ATE

A

nti-Semitic attacks by neo-N

azis and other rightists in G

ermany

soared in the first nine months of

1994, according to government

figures.

937 attacks directed at Jews or

Jewish property w

ere recorded by federal police up to the en

d o

f Septem

ber, as compared w

ith 656 anti-Sem

itic recorded offenses during all of 1993.

U PR

OTEST

About 2,000 people have protested

in Sindelfingen, Germ

any, against a congress of the far-right R

epublican party, one of the country's largest right-w

ing groups.

The ow

ners of the convention center w

here the congress was being held

had at first refused to rent the hall to the R

epublicans, but a court had ruled that because the party w

as not banned, the ow

ners had to allow the

congress to go ahead.

■ C

ON

VIC

TIO

N

One of G

ermany's m

ost influential neo-N

azis and a driving force behind efforts to create a national neo-N

azi network has been jailed

by a Frankfurt court.

Christian W

orth, who has already

served time in jail for incitem

ent to violence and racial hatred, is credited w

ith masterm

inding the use of hi-tech electronic links and m

ailboxes to connect extrem

e right-wing groups

while keeping them

out of the reach of police and intelligence services.

■ H

ITLER SA

LUTE

Prosecutors in eastern G

ermany

have charged nine suspected right-w

ingers for giving the stiff-armed

Hitler salute and distributing

banned neo-Nazi propaganda.

The spokesw

oman for the prosecu-

tor's office in the eastern city of W

eimar said the nine w

ere believed to be m

embers of the far-right

Viking Y

outh. D

ate

line: W

orld

Jew

ry is issued by the Institute of the World Jew

ish Congress, the research and

publication arm of the W

JC, 501 M

adison Avenue, N

ew Y

ork, NY

10022, USA

.1 Evelyne K

ayess, Editor

9 ■ V

IKIN

GS

OU

T

The G

erman Federal M

inister of the Interior has announced that he outlaw

ed the right-wing extrem

ist organization V

iking Youth.

The group, the oldest right-w

ing extrem

ist youth organization in G

ermany, is estim

ated to have 400 m

embers, m

ostly over the age of 21.

■ FIR

EB

OM

B TR

IAL

Four Germ

an youths went on trial

accused of firebombing a synagogue

in Luebeck last M

arch. Court sources

said the defendants, aged between 15

and 20, were charged w

ith arson and five counts of attem

pted murder in

the attack.

■ C

RA

CK

DO

WN

G

erman police have cracked dow

n on far-rightists in S

axony-Anhalt,

raiding numerous hom

es and seizing w

eapons and neo-Nazi

propaganda.

The police operation w

as directed at 25 m

embers of a rightist group

calling itself the "Middle G

erman

Assistance," w

hich had renamed

itself "Wittenberg Fellow

ship" after a ban im

posed by state justices.

■ D

ES

EC

RA

TION

S

uspected neo-Naxis vandalized

a 160-year-old historic Jewish

cemetery in B

usenberg, in south-w

estern Germ

any. About 50 grave-

stones were toppled, and sw

astikas and slogans like "Jew

s should die" w

ere sprayed.

■ H

ATE

BA

N

The G

erman governm

ent plans to ban several far-right groups, according to a report in new

s m

agazine Der Speigel.

The report said that B

onn would

ask the courts to outlaw the groups,

which "ranted against Jew

ish capitalism

."

U.S

.A.

■ N

OW

YO

U S

EE

IT N

ew Y

ork State prison officials agreed to accept a com

puter image

of a clean-shaven Hasidic rabbi

instead of forcing the imprisoned

Orthodox Jew

to shave his beard and sideburns.

Rabbi Shlom

o Helbrans, 32, claim

ed shaving his facial hair to satisfy prison requirem

ents for photos of inm

ates violated his religious beliefs. A

fter reviewing com

puter im

ages in court, prison officials determ

ined the images could accu-

rately depict Helbran.s as he w

ould appear w

ithout his facial hair.

MI M

EN

OR

AH

S V

AN

DA

LIZ

ED

U

.S. authorities are investigating

the destruction of two public

menorahs at the Jew

ish Com

munity

Center and K

eneseth Beth Israel

in Richm

ond, Virginia. Police have

stated that they will consider this a

hate crime if th

ey find it "was done

in a malicious m

anner directed against a particular group."

E FA

KE

AD

A

full-page ad that ran for four days in the M

iami H

erald and solicited m

oney for a Jewish organi-

zation, called FL

AM

E, w

as a fraud, the new

spaper said. FL

AM

E (or

Facts and Logic A

bout the Middle

East) said that they knew

nothing about the ad.

E M

OV

ING

IN

Several m

ultinational firms have

announced they are setting up shop in Israel.

Am

ong them are D

el Monte F

oods International and healthcare giant Johnson and Johnson, w

hich are establishing Israel subsidiaries, and the N

ew Y

ork based international investm

ent firm M

errill Lynch,

which plans to set up an Israeli

office in 1995.

II MO

SA

IC D

OV

E

A rare color m

osaic has been dis-covered by the Israeli A

ntiquities A

uthority in a Byzantine church

dating between the fourth and

seventh centuries in the center of B

eersheba. The m

osaic depicts a dove w

ith an olive leaf in its beak.

■ R

ELIG

IOU

S R

IGH

TS

The Jordanian governm

ent has agreed to allow

worshippers and

students of Jewish religious schools

to make regular visits to Jew

ish sacred sites in Jordan.

The Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty,

signed on October 26, underlines

the right of Jews to visit all tourist

attractions in Jordan.

■ TO

P TO

MA

TO

The price of tom

atoes has sky-rocketed in Jordan after Israel started im

porting them from

the K

ingdom. In Israel, the price of

tomatoes had reached alm

ost $1.50 a pound, five tim

es their normal

price.

AR

OU

ND

&

AB

OU

T ■

HY

PN

OS

IS

Witnesses of the Panam

anian air-crash w

hich occurred one day after the bom

bing of the Jewish com

mu-

nity center in Buenos A

ires will be

hypnotized and questioned by U.S

. agents as part of the investigation. T

welve of the 21 victim

s of the crash w

ere Jewish and it has been sug-

gested that they may have been the

target of the bombing.

IN LEB

AN

ESE JEWS

A delegation of French Jew

s made

an appeal to the Lebanese govern-

ment to disclose the fate of seven

Lebanese Jew

s abducted between

1984 and 1986, during the civil war

in Lebanon (1975-90). T

he group, from

the Representative C

ouncil of Jew

ish Institutions in France, received a prom

ise from Foreign

Minister F

aris Bouez that he w

ould disclose any inform

ation that the governm

ent receives about the m

issing Jews.

■ S

YN

AG

OG

UE

FIRE

A

rson squad detectives in Australia

are investigating a fire which

severely damaged a M

elbourne synagogue early N

ew Y

ear's Day.

Senior Station Officer C

olin Bibby

of the fire brigade said investigators called in the arson squad after discovering broken w

indows and

accelerant in the altar area. Police are believed to b

e investigating links betw

een this fire and a fire attack on a library for religious books in N

ovember last year.

a

yaju

ottil■ C

oil&

)441-4,Mte

• E

XC

EL

LE

NC

E

111 TRIA

L SET W

ith few exceptions, the 17 Jew

ish secondary schools in B

ritain have been highly placed in a 1994 governm

ent performance table.

=I

Am

ong the scorers were L

ondon's H

asmonean, w

hich was 10th in

comprehensive school placings

nationwide, M

anchester's King

David H

igh, which placed eighth,

and Liverpool's K

ing David H

igh, w

hich placed fifth.

TA

NK

FIN

D

During a search of the hom

es of suspected neo-N

azi extremists

Austrian anti-terrorist police

discovered a tank and an armored

personnel carrier. The discovery w

as m

ade on a farm in the village of

Goepfritz an der W

ild. The vehicles

were reportedly in good w

orking order, and large am

ounts of explo-sives and rifles w

ere also found.

11 HITLE

R'S

BIR

THP

LAC

E

Tow

n councilmen in A

dolf Hitler's

birthplace have rejected plans to nam

e a street and fountain after a key figure of A

ustria's anti-Nazi

resistance, Franz Jaegerstaetter, a

devout Rom

an Catholic w

ho was

executed in 1943. Jaegerstaetter becam

e a symbol of resistance to

the Nazis for refusing to serve in

Hitler's arm

y.

IN P

OP

E P

LA

NS

Israeli F

oreign Minister S

himon

Peres said that P

ope John Paul 11

plans to visit Israel before the end of the century, follow

ing a meeting

with him

in Vatican C

ity. Peres

also spoke about extending the C

hristian-Jewish dialogue to

include the Islamic w

orld in an effort to com

bat fundamentalism

.

Christian D

avid is to be tried before a P

aris court for premeditated m

ur-der follow

ing last year's shooting of R

ene Bousquet. B

ousquet was the

wartim

e chief of the French col-

laborationist Vichy police, and w

as accused of being responsible for a tw

o-day round-up of more than

12,000 Jews by French police in 1942.

HO

TLINE

B

ritain's National U

nion of Students

has opened a 24-hour hotline to com

bat far-right groups spreading propaganda against Jew

s, Blacks,

and gays on campuses. T

he union, w

hose campaign is supported by

the Union of Jew

ish Students and

the anti-fascist magazine S

ea

rchlig

ht,

believes groups such as the British

National P

arty are keen to create a student follow

ing to help sustain credibility.

El S

OC

IAL

IST

PL

ED

GE

T

he Chairw

oman of the S

ocialist G

roup of the European P

arliament,

Pauline G

reen, declared at a meet-

ing in Brussels that the G

roup "is opposed to those w

ho advocate the politics of hate" and that it w

ould fight to stem

the rise of fascism in

Europe, and Italy in particular, in

the coming years. M

rs. Green w

ent on to say that "T

he European U

nion w

as built on the ashes of fascism

and anti-Sem

itism, and let's not

forget that."

■ M

EM

OR

Y

The B

elgian Jewish com

munity,

which lacks archives of its history,

has created a "Foundation of

Contem

porary Mem

ory" to collect and establish w

ritten evidence of events of this century.

The foundation w

ill assemble oral

histories and documents from

the period, including the years of N

azi occupation of B

elgium.

SC

IEN

CE

&

TEC

H-

NO

LO

GY

H

EA

L THY

SE

LF R

esearchers at Israel's Technion in

Haifa have developed equipm

ent w

hich helps to close wounds in less

than an hour, utilizing the skin's capacity for self-healing.

The equipm

ent, which stretches

healthy skin from the outer edges of

a wound over the w

ound, is being m

arketed as "Sure-closure" by an

Am

erican firm.

IN SO

LAR

WA

TER

Israel's A

miad F

iltration & F

ertiliza-tion S

ystems has m

anufactured a w

ater filtration system that operates

on solar energy.

The device, w

hich is capable of filtering highly contam

inated water,

is especially useful for remote areas

not supplied by electric cables from

a central power source.

11 EY

E TR

Y

Researchers at Israel's W

eizmann

Institute of Science have developed

a new procedure for the treatm

ent of glaucom

a which avoids the

creation of scar tissue and post-surgical com

plications.

It is expected to take several years for the procedure to becom

e gener-ally available.

11

3-D

T

he Israeli firm H

olo-Or has

developed a new trifocal contact

lens.

The innovation w

ill aid people, m

ostly 45 years and up, who have

lost the eye's natural abilities to focus.

EAST

EURO EPRAN S

i AP

OL

OG

Y

Ukrainian P

resident Leonid

Kuchm

a, on a state visit to the U

nited States, paid tribute to H

olo-caust victim

s and expressed regret over U

krainians who collaborated

with the N

azi occupiers during the S

econd World W

ar. Kuchm

a met

with Jew

ish leaders in New

York

and Washington and also toured

the Holocaust M

useum, w

hich he presented w

ith a list of Ukrainians

credited with saving Jew

ish lives during the w

ar.

• C

ZE

CH

MA

TE

C

zech Jewish leaders have com

-plained that the governm

ent is delaying the return of property seized during the N

azi occupation and by the C

omm

unist rulers of form

er Czechoslovakia. T

he chair-m

an of the Czech R

epublic's Fed-

eration of Jewish C

omm

unities, Jiri D

anicek, said that the Jewish

side is "obliged to submit to all th

e quirks of bureaucracy and forced to hold endless talks w

ith an unclear prospect of success."

11111111111111111111111111111111111111 I 11 I . 1 . 111111111111111111111111M11111111111111111111111111111111 III ' . I 11111111111111111111111111111111111111 111111 111 1 11 11111111111111111111111111111111111111M11111 ■

ZHIR

INO

VS

KY

SU

IT T

he head of the Russian F

ederal C

ounter-Intelligence Service (F

SK

), S

ergei Stepashin, has brought a

case against ultra-nationalist V

ladimir Z

hirinovsky for allegedly calling him

"an agent of Mossad,"

the Israeli intelligence agency. S

tepashin sued Zhirinovsky as a

private person whose honor and

dignity had been publicly insulted, rather than in his position as head of the FSK

.

■ C

OO

RD

INA

TIO

N

Lithuanian P

resident Algirdas

Brazauskas has established a

special working group to coordi-

nate state policies dealing with

Jewish cultural heritage and the

issue of the Holocaust. A

mong

other objectives, the group also w

ants to expand relations between

Lithuania and Israel, as according

to the secretary of the working

group, Lithuania w

ill benefit from

establishing closer ties with Israel

and the world Jew

ish comm

unity.

■ C

HU

RC

H C

AL

L

A declaration has been issued by

the Hungarian C

atholic Bishops

and the Ecum

enical Council of

Hungarian C

hurches calling the H

olocaust "the biggest shame of

the 20th century." The statem

ent also asks forgiveness in the nam

e of the C

hristians who "failed to act

against the deportation, persecution and killing of 600,000 H

ungarian Jew

s during the Holocaust."

ISRAEL ■

II MIX

ED

RE

SU

LTS

A survey conducted by the Jew

ish A

gency has confirmed that w

hile Israelis love the idea of im

migra-

tion, they are not so keen on imm

i-grants them

selves.

Although 41.5%

of those polled said that im

migration had top priority as

being essential to the State of Israel,

53% said they could not, or w

ere unw

illing to help an imm

igrant fam

ily with its initial absorption,

and 25% w

ere against imm

igrants living in their buildings.

■ C

HIN

A C

OA

L

Follow

ing successful trials, the Israel N

ational Coal C

orporation is im

porting another two shipm

ents of coal from

China, w

here the coal quality has been found to be good. U

ntil recently, SouthA

frica has been the m

ajor exporter of coal to Israel, supplying 60%

of the country's needs.

■ TA

X TIM

E

The total 1994 Israeli tax burden

reached 41.2% com

pared with the

1993 taxation of 40% and 39.6%

in 1992.

Israel is ranked fourth in the world

in taxes behind Sw

itzerland, B

elgium and D

enmark.

III CO

MO

RO

KN

OT

Israel and the C

omoro Islands have

established diplomatic ties. W

ith a population of 400,000, the islands, halfw

ay between M

adagascar and M

ozambique, are the sm

allest m

ember state in the A

rab League.

II ME

DIC

AL

ET

HIC

S

For the first tim

e, a leading Arab

physician will join a Jew

ish Nobel

Prize w

inner in San F

rancisco at F

ebruary's sixth annual Interna-tional C

onference on Jewish

Medical E

thics.

Professor A

bdallah Daar, the senior

physician in the Sultanate of O

man,

will join N

obelist Dr. A

rthur Korn-

berg and participants from other

countries to discuss medicine in

the Bible and T

almud, organ trans-

plantation, the treatment of pain

in cancer patients, and other issues.

■ B

OO

K S

LAS

HE

R

Stephen L

. Wom

ack, 42, suspected of slashing thousands of books in libraries at H

arvard and Northeast-

ern Universities over a four-year

period, is being held on charges of m

aking anti-Sem

itic bomb threats

against Boston-area schools. P

ros-ecutors allege that W

omack threat-

ened to bomb the universities and

a bank unless they paid a ransom

and fired Jewish em

ployees.

III ELITE

STU

DY

A

study by Purdue U

niversity said that despite sm

all gains by Jews

and Catholics in the last years,

• m

ainline Protestants (less than 5%

of all A

mericans) still m

ake up far m

ore of Am

erica's social, economic

and political elites.

■ IN

DIC

TME

NT

A B

oston grand jury charged R

oy Frankhauser w

ith inducing w

itnesses to destroy or conceal evidence, including N

azi material,

in the investigation of a neo-Nazi

group called the New

Daw

n H

amm

erskins. Frankhauser alleg-

edly persuaded the mother of B

rian

Clayton, the founder of the w

hite suprem

acist group, to destroy a new

spaper clipping reporting the desecration of synagogues. C

layton pleaded guilty in O

ctober to advocating violence to drive out Jew

s and Blacks.

I AN

TI-S

EM

ITIS

M S

UIT

In D

enver, Colorado, M

itchell and C

andice Aronson have filed a

federal lawsuit claim

ing that neigh-bors launched an anti-S

emitic

campaign to drive them

from their

home. T

he Aronsons are accusing

their neighbors, the Quigleys,

of ethnic intimidation, slander,

interfering with civil and property

rights, assault, civil conspiracy and outrageous conduct.

■ N

AZ

I CH

AR

GE

T

he Justice Departm

ent has accused A

lgimantas D

ailide, presently living in C

leveland, of serving the N

azis during World W

ar II in a L

ithuanian security police force.

Officials said the case against

Dailide is based on records found

in the Lithuanian C

entral State

Archives. D

ailide faces revocation of his U

.S. citizenship and deporta-

tion, should he be found guilty.

EUR

OPE I

■ S

YN

AG

OG

UE

R

ES

TOR

ATIO

N

Cerem

onies were held this w

eek to m

ark the restoration of the M

iddelburg Synagogue, the oldest

synagogue in the Netherlands that

is still in use. The sm

all synagogue, m

easuring 33 by 30 feet, was built

in 1705 and now serves a com

mu-

nity of 31 Jews.