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November 24, 2000/Heshvan 26, 5761, Vol. 53, No.9
'We will prevail,' Barak tells largest-ever GA assemblage
LENI REISS
Senior Contributing Editor
From left, Valley residents Elaine Schreiber, Marcia Weisberg and Patti Becker prepare to attend a GA session.
Photo by Leni Reiss |
There were more police than protesters outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Chicago's River Walk early Tuesday, Nov.14, as unrelenting winds ripped at the black, green, red and white Palestinian flags wrapped around 23 men and two women.
"End the occupation," "The people united will never be defeated," the flagwavers chanted.
Uniformed policemen, two with dogs, outnumbered protesters by at least a dozen, while two police boats on nearby Lake Michigan surveyed the scene.
Security both inside and outside the hotel was tight throughout the entire length of the 69th annual General Assembly of United Jewish Communities Nov. 10-15. Vehicles approaching the area were stopped and searched, and delegates were allowed into some sessions only with ID badges.
On the morning of Nov. 14, Israeli Likud leader Ariel Sharon's presence was the chief concern. Arguably the most hated Israeli in the Arab world, Sharon was inside the hotel to deliver an address to several hundred listeners who had been up since before dawn.
"It is clear that the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Yasser Arafat, have made a strategic decision to launch a war of attrition against Israel and its citizens," the controversial soldier and politician said.
The opposition leader concluded his talk with a call for unity - "for all the Jews of the world" - to send a clear message to the Arab world. "True peace," he said, "can only be reached when they recognize not just Israel's might, but mainly Israel's right."
Israel's best friend
Police also had been out in full force the night before, when thousands of Palestinian sympathizers braved bitter cold to chant slogans and wave posters outside an auditorium at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. A small group nearby carried placards that read, "Jesus loves Arabs and Jews."
That evening, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who had cancelled a press conference earlier in the day because of a sore throat and cold, took the stage to a lengthy standing ovation. His voice hoarse and husky, he thanked President Clinton for his help in promoting the peace process.
"His entire team devoted inordinate time to resolving this conflict," Barak said.
"The United States is Israel's best friend," he told the capacity crowd of nearly 5,000 Jews from throughout North America, "and we will never forget it."
The prime minister said he could see no solution to the "tragic conflict" now unfolding in the Middle East, other than a negotiated settlement.
"We shake with anger at the exploitation of children by the Palestinians and the shootings at us by Palestinian policeman. We have used restraint and not yet exerted our full military might. We are now deployed at the border," he continued, "and are ready to defend ourselves against our enemies."
But, he noted, "23 years ago (Israeli Prime Minister Menachem) Begin and (Egyptian President Anwar) Sadat made the first steps, and it is our historical role to complete the task - to be a free people in our own land. The road to peace may be a long one," he said, "but if we stand united, holding fast to our noble interests, we will prevail."
As he left the stage, Barak stopped to shake the hands of each of 12 young Israeli honor guards stationed to his rear.
Holocaust not debatable
Although solidarity with Israel was the GA's dominant theme, delegates also attended sessions large and small covering myriad additional issues, including outreach to interfaith families, Jewish education and the U.S. federal elections.
Deborah Lipstadt and Sam Freedman (both of whom will be in the Valley this winter to speak for the annual Passages lecture series) were among presenters. Lipstadt, an author and lecturer who won a stunning victory in a libel action brought by British Holocaust denier David Irving, talked about "a different incarnation of denial," ads placed by Holocaust revisionist Bradley R. Smith, in American college campus newspapers nationwide, claiming the Holocaust never happened.
"I'm trying to get people aware of these deniers," she said.
"There is no room to debate whether or not the Holocaust actually happened," she said, "and there is no obligation on the part of the newspapers to run these ads."
Columbia University journalism professor Sam Freedman, whose recently published book "Jew vs. Jew" focuses on religious conflicts among Jews in America today, talked about journalistic ethics at "Do the Write Thing," a program for college journalism students sponsored by the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel. He told the aspiring writers that although it is a tradition in the Jewish world "to keep our disagreements private so that the outside world won't exploit us, the responsibility is to the reader, to give them the best, fairest, most accurate reporting."
Voice in the wilderness
Speaking at another student journalists' session, David Bedein of the Israel Resource News Agency described himself as "a voice in the wilderness." For several years, his focus has been to monitor the Palestinian press "and take the temperature on the other side."
"The results have been consistently disturbing - but now uniquely relevant," he said. His challenge has been to deal with a (Jewish) community in denial, he said. "But the facts are on my side, and now that there is a crisis, people are listening."
The Palestine Broadcast Corporation, he said, "calls for children to be out there fighting every day. It's right out there. They don't hide anything."
Bedein distributed copies of a list of PBC media topics that included these three themes:
^^^UL^^^
The intifada is a form of peaceful persuasion.
Israel is the aggressor and any military action Israel takes is, by definition, aggression.
All those who die fighting Israel are martyrs and heroes, even if they attack Israeli civilians.
Bedein, who is based in Jerusalem, said he was twice "cyber-attacked - 700 hundred viruses in one day - all of which were traced to Arab-Palestinian sources."
Nonetheless, he said, there is a lot of pressure from Jewish organizations "not to get the word out, not to stress the negative."
He pointed out to his listeners that Anwar Sadat, "even with his Nazi background," promised that he would give the same message in Egypt that he did in the Knesset and concluded with the observation, "Yasser Arafat never made that commitment."
Honors for Phoenix
The local delegation to the GA consisted of Jewish Federation lay leaders Mark Sklar, Ann Zinman, Elaine Schreiber, Lois Zachary, Neal and Bobbi Kurn and Lanny and Marlene Lahr; and professionals Art Paikowsky, Terri Swirnoff, Fred Zeidman, Marcia Weisberg and Patti Becker.
Phoenix was well represented as individuals and communities were singled out for recognition.
Dave Sherman and Lisa Pinkus earned UJC Young Leadership Awards for "demonstrating commitment to the Jewish people through community involvement and achievement."
Neal Kurn received an annual endowment achievement award, given to individuals who have advanced endowments through their efforts.
The Phoenix federation was among a handful nationwide receiving the 1999 Federation Campaign Achievement Sapir Award for campaign and donor increases.
"Whether someone came to hear Barak or Sharon - or to attend a few sessions of special interest - there was a palpable sense of concern about the situation in Israel," observed Elaine Schreiber. A former federation president here in the Valley, Schreiber is a member of the UJC board of trustees by virtue of her position as Western Region chairwoman.
"I was really there on business," she told Jewish News, "and spent more time in meetings than in sessions. But being with people who share a common agenda of individual, communal and national growth is so exciting."
"We also of course are so aware of what is happening in Israel and our hearts are in pain. It made our time together all the more meaningful."
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