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Super Sunday's Project Warm-Up 1^^ By Tom Vann, ^ Super Sunday co-chairman with Trenton Magid for the 1996 UJA/Federadon Campaign "Hie Omaha Jewish Community has a unique opportunity to assist needy Jewish people in the former Soviet Union. There are approximately 1,400,000 Jews left I there and many of these people, including the elderly, handicapped and sinf^e n^others, are strug^ing to survive. They barely have money for food and rent. Coats are badly needed! Project Wann-Up, a hands-on tzedakah project in conjunction with the UJA/Federation Campaign's Super Sunday phon-a-thon, is our effort to help relieve this serious shortage of warm coats for people facing economic hardships in the former Soviet Union. You can help by donating coats, hats, gloves and • mittens in good condition — that is, clean with no holes, rips, missing buttons, broken zippers, etc. Project Warm-Up containers will be placed at the following locations from Oct. 2 through Dec. 8: The Jewish Community Center, Beth El, Beth Israel, Beyt Shalom, and B'nai Israel Synagogues. Due to construction, collection dates at Temple Israel will be announced. On Super Sunday, Dec. 10, the coats we have collected wilt be packed and shipped to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) for distribution to our fellow Jews in the former Soviet Union. A portion of the money raised by the UJA/Federation Campaign, including our Super 'SOJOday telethon, funds the rescue and community building efforts of the JDC in the former Soviet Union.
Tom Vann (left) and Tkvnton Magid The coats we collect will be shittped by the U.S. Department of State at no cost to us or to the recipients. The shipment will be supervised by the JDC to ensure that the items are appropriately distributed. Please become a part of Project Warm-Up and feel the warmth of luiowing that your old coat will be used by a Jey in the former Soviet Union. For more information, call the Federation office at 334-6428.
Rabbi Friedman resigns Rabbi Joseph Friedman has resigned as spiritual leader of Beth Israel Synagogue. His resignation, effective Get 17, was announced to congregants in a letter by Donald Gerber, president. The congregation also was advised that Cantor Emeritus Leo Fettman will serve as interim rabbi.
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Study shows agencies dependent on government By Matthew Dorf WASHINGTON (JTA) — Reeling from a study showing heavier than expected dependence on government funding, Jewish federations across the country are gearing up for a fight to save their nursing homes, social service agencies and hospitals. Planned congressional budget cuts to social welfare programs would eviscerate Jewish services nationwide and threaten the entire federation system, according to the Council of Jewish Federations. Jewish communal agencies receive more than $3.67 billion from federal, state and local governments, representing about 41 percent of their total budgets, according to a CJF survey of 45 federations released last week. The federated system is about to confront a crisis that will test our leadership as never before," said Richard Wexler, chairman of the CJF's Community Planning and Financial Resource Development Steering Committee. *No longer can the Jewish community adopt a Vait and see' attitude," he said as he presented the report to the CJF executive committee meeting in Detroit. "It's too late for that," he said. *We must recognize the emergency and deal with it now." Diana Aviv, the director of the CJFs Washington action office, which prepared the report, said she was "shocked, agog and startled when numbers came in." "In fact, the Jewish community is deeply dependent on government funds. Although ofncials admit the numbers are shocking, they point out that more than two-thirds of the $3.67 bilUon goes to Jewish-supported hospitals in the form of Medicaid and Medicare payments.*
Third in a four-part series:
Politics, The Presidency, and Israel "/ believe in the turcival ofAmerican Jewry. divided nation. J believe in it» organic membenhip in the patThe Jewish community, however, was divided tern of American civilization. American about the draft (Joldwin initiative, many resentfiil ! Jewry i$ not lomething grafted onto the exitt- at the higher tariffs he imposed on selective Israeli ing ttructure of tut American nation, but i$ super-technology products. timultaneoiu with iti birth and growth, and Others countered that due to his personal spontotally inMcparable from itt deatiny." sorship of the U.S.-Israel Feed The World Program — Israeli UN Ambassador Abba Eban, 1959 (FTWP), which utiUzed Israeli technology to feed the planet's 12 billion people (today there are 5.6 By Yosef L Abramowits billion), Goldwin has good pro-Israel credentials. When President Dan Goldwin, a Democrat, Whether one favored Goldwin or not (most did announced that he was not going to seek a second because they still belonged to the Democratic term in 2044, he didn't expect the national reaction Party), the ascension of American Jewry, from powbe received. Millions of signatures on petitions to erlessness in 1946 to the Oval Office in 100 years, draft the president came flooding in from all cor- was breathtaking. ners of the country. Behind the effort, a coalition of The trends shaping the American Jewish politiAfrican-American, Hispanic and Asian-American cal landscape into the 21st century have more to do organizations, representing half of the 380 million with American society than with internal Jewish Americans. dynamics. Even so, 'the commitment of Jews to Goldwin, like many of the 60 Jewish members of social justice will not diminish," says Lynn Lyss, Congress (there are 33 now), got his political feet chairperson of the National Jewish Community wet in the late 20th century by either involvement Relations Council (NJCRAC), an umbrella group with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that advocates on a wide array of public policy (AIPAC) in college or through the Panlm el Panim: issue*. High School in Washington program. A moderate While the U.S. Census Bureau predict* that the who learned early the value of coalition-building in population is expected to grow by 68 percent in the a pluralistic political landscape made up of next 50 years, the American Jewish oommunity i* Republicans, Democrats, Indepandents and expected to shrink. American Jew* will comprise Christian Coalition parties, Goldwin's first term between 1 and 11/2 percent of the U.S. population, vat characterised by an unusual calm. a* oppoeed to tod*/* 2.7 percent. *In 60 year*, White Americans, who make up about half the coalition-building will be even more paramount," leountry (down firom 83% in 1096) but are • relative- *ay* Lor**. American Jewry, however, "will continly affluent block of voter*, wve at odd* with the ue to be wealthier, healthier and better educated coalition of ethnic group* that had dominated local than the rest of the population,* according to and congre**lon*l politic* for **T*ral year*. Baibara Skoiniek Hoenig, a planning coneultant to Ooldwin, an ethnic American but alao white, wa* CJV. 'Jewiah men and women will continue enterthe oompromiee candidate that brou^t calm to a ing into tb* proCiesion* and executive pceiUons, but
in some areas they will be unequally represented, such as in law, medicine, engineering, science and as executives.* In her study Jewish Environmental Scan Toward the Year 2000, Hoenig predicts that antisemitism will continue to decline and that "As Jewish civic involvement remains comparatively high, Jewish participation in the political process through activity and fund raising will grow. Jews will continue to vote in large numbers, and they will vote to support huOian rights causes and Israel." "As Israel becomes more economically viable and less dependent upon the aid of the United States and most certainly of American Jewry, the American Jewish community will focus more on domestic issues," says Tommy Baer, president of B'nai B'rith International. "And I do think that a Jewish president is possible, but it would have to be someone like JFK, smart, charismatic, who could break the religious barrier as Kennedy did with Catholicism." While JFK had to contend with a 184 year-old tradition of electing Protestants to the U.S. presidency, he never had the heavy cloud of dual loyalty hang over his head. And neither has (loldwin. Since the eetablitb ment of peace between the Jewish itate and the neighboring Arab countrie*, Israel baa been a minor political iaaue for American Jewt. (Unleea, of course, the U.S. has not devtloped alternative energy tource* and ha* baooiM eroa. more dependent upon Arab oil and natural ga*. The U.S. currently ha* ga* and oil ra*enr«i for another 66 year*, while the Middle Beat ba* natural reserve* for another 100 yean.) (eootlnued on page 4)