Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1972 — Page 22

THE JEWISH POST AND OPINION

Friday, March 37, 7972

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THE SPORTS POST

Only 13, Barbie Hopes To Make Olympics

By GEORGE VASS It isn’t easy to keep up with Barbie Weinstein, whether in the water * or in the sports pages, where we last took note of her 15 months ago. But this is a n Olympic Year and Barbie is an Olympic diver Vass —w h e t h e r this time around or in 1976. After all, there is no problem of her running out of youth as she is only 13 years old. Still, she well could make it this time and there’s no question that she’ll put forth the effort in the Olympic trials, to be toeld July 28-30 at Chicago. The record makes her a formidable — if small at four foot nine Inches and eighty pounds — threat to gain an Olympic berth. THE LITTLE Cincinnati girl proved that in last August’s outdoor National Amateur Athletic Union Championships in Slouston. She finished sixth •mong a gi\,up of far older and more experienced divers, qualifying as one of only 30 eligible to compete in the Olympic trials. In order to compete in the National AAU meet, she concentrated on the three-meter competition, almost giving up the ©ne-meter board. Her coach felt she should concentrate on the board that has Olympic recognition. Because of this, Barbie passed jap last year’s Junior Olympics, In which previously she had »iarned a record four gold Inedals in the competition for the 11 and 12 age group.

BARBIE WEINSTEIN • • • swimming phenomenon BUT SHE SHOWED that the Houston meet, she competed in switch to the three-meter board the one-meter against the curhadn’t culled her skill from the rent 13-14 National Junior cham-one-meier. Following the pion. Her coach predicted she

would win by 40 points. He was wrong — she won by 68 points. The next day, also on the low board in the women’s open competition at the University of Michigan pool, she defeated the No. 2 ranked diver nationally off the one-meter board, a college student. So, all in all, Barbie is heading into the Olympic trials with a running start. NOT THAT SHE’S h a d a slump yet, in any event. In the past year, Barbie defeated the 1969 Maccabian champion on the three-meter board in their last two encounters. She was selected as the exhibition diver at the Yale Water Carnival, an honor normally reserved for national champions on the senior level. Her record of achievement would be sparkling for someone twice her age — and, incidentally, several of the girls she defeated in the Nationals at Houston were diving before Barbie was born. She has a string of 55 straight victories in events competing against girls in her own age group. The last time she lost such an event was May 24, 1969, two months before she turned 11. IN OHIO’S AAU competition, she has a run of 19 victories, including six women’s open championships. Her record for the current diving year is eight firsts and a second. Maybe one should take note of that defeat. It occurred on Feb. 13 in an Invitational Meet in Louisville, where she lost to the current three-meter national champion, a senior at Indiana University, Cindy Potter. Miss Potter defeated her, 481 to 472

points, over 11 dives. One would imagine that Barbie hardly ever does anything but get out of the water to jump back into it. Not so. She’s doing rather well at Walnut Hills High, a college preparatory school. She has maintained a 4.0 average. ‘HER COMPETITIVE attitude towards school is as intense as her diving spirit,” says her ipother, Mrs. Aaron Weinstein. “We do not know which has helped which, but my feeling is that diving has been the driving force since Barbie’s grades, as a diver, have gradually reached the peak where they are now.” Fortunately, all this hasn’t turned Barbie’s head, at least not other than to pbint it toward the water. Besides, she hasn’t yet achieved her major ambition this year: to be a member of the 1972 Olympic team. If she does, there’ll be a lot of people around the world writing about someone who doesn't weight 100 pounds soaking wet — and they won’t be exaggerating. George Vass can be reached at 9039 Major Ave., Morton Grove, 111., 60953.

Panthers Imitate U.S. Counterparts JERUSALEM — About $600 i n gift certificates were distributed to poor Jerusalem families by the Israel Black Panthers who said the money came from an unnamed American donor.

The Rodicai Jewish Perspective Jews Never Really Protested Vietnam War

By MIKE TABOR This month’s issue of Earth magazine (April) is a rather f r i ghtening affair. The pictures are in glaring, reallife color . . . and that alw a y s makes things seem a bit more real, doesn’t it? A picture of a Tabor “Daisy C u t - ter,” a 7.5 ton bomb which kills everything within a radius of 10 city blocks is easier to comprehend when you see a picture of it. An entire landscape . . . villages, farms and cropland wiped out and scraped over (with “Rome Plows”) so it cannot be used again (in the forseeable future). And the people m . « those who are still alive • . . where do they go? Millions af them are herded into chicken coop urban concentration camps. THE PLACE, OF course, is Vietnam. Something the American people would rather forget. It was a big mistake, wasn’t It? Those o# you who “backed •>e President” because you toought be knew something you

didn’t know, now feel that maybe you were wrong. But the troops are being withdrawn. The urgency seems to be over. Little Irving, Samuel, or David doesn’t have to worry about being yanked out of college and put into the Army any more. So, no more crisis. Back to everyday life. More mundane worries loom a bit closer to our lives . . . drugs, crime, Soviet Jewry, Israel, the economic crisis. And so, your eyes drift away when you read in the paper, about an increased number of bombing missions by U.S. planes this year. Or, of “commies” and “reds” advancing and taking over areas of South Vietnam everyone said was in safe hands due to “Vietnamization.” But it’s the South Vietnamese army that’s now taking the beating. FEWER AND FEWER American casualties. And so you skip the articles on the computerized war, the permanent destruction of the ecology and the hundreds of deaths that take place in Vietnam each week. It’s all too horrible to really comprehend, anyway. Well, as you know, the war’s really not over. It’ll go on and

on. The money will continue to be spent. The B-52 bombing (from 20,000 or so feet) will go on. And people will die. But what does all this have to do with Jewish people, you ask. Well, not much really. Or so it would appear. For throughout the history of the War in Vietnam, the Jewish community of America has kept relatively quiet. Oh yes, resolutions were passed. And, ever so slowly, Jewish organizations endorsed various, albeit moderate, means of ending the war. It didn’t happen for many Jewish groups until way after their comparable Catholic or Protestant counterparts spoke up and not until their own children were affected, but it happened. BUT ACTION didn’t go much beyond motions. Participation “as Jews” in demonstrations never really happened. (One Jewish women’s group found its “permission” to participate in a march cancelled by the male dominated national organization). The excuse, when it was voiced orally, was Israel. And now, it’s the issue of Soviet Jewry. Johnson blackmailed Jewish organizations over the Phantom

Jets (“Keep your mouths shut, and Israel will get her arms”). And now Nixon has them over the barrel with his offer to help Soviet Jews. (As long as they go to Israel, not America!) Allen Pollack, the fair-haired “scholar in residence” of this past year’s National Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds convention has often shocked his audience, when, (asked to speak on the issue of Soviet Jewry) he chides Jewish groups on their use of the Soviet Jewry and Israel issues as excuses for “copping out” on other problems. Another scholar has compared the relative quiet of America’s Jews on the Vietnam War to the role of Pope during the Holocaust. So what? You’ve had it up to here with the war. Demonstrations, letters to the President, to Congress, to .Senators, nothing seems to help end it. What do you do? Five of us went to Paris this month (March) to ask various groups of Vietnamese exactly that question. Our visit was the first comprising of Jews (as Jews) meeting with the Vietnamese. The results of the meetings will be published in the next column.

Those of you wishing to write directly to Mike can do so by sending your letters to: 10239 Nolan Drive, Rockville, Md. 20850. If you’d like an excellent “handbook” on the escalation of the war, write to the Indochina Resource Center, 1322 18th St., Washington, D.C. 20036, enclose $1.50 and ask them for a copy of “Air War — The Third Indochina War.” Ask them to also enclose a copy of their publication called “Land War” (gratis). Mike Tabor can be reached at 10239 Nolan Drive, Rockville, Md. 20850

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