Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 February 1994 — Page 19

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Names In The News

3 big names at London Jewish affair It was a big week for three non-Jewish international figures in London as they were speakers for Jewish fund-raising events. President George Bush spoke at the Joint Israel Appeal's annual dinner. Lady Thatcher at the 60th anniversary dinner for Youth Aliyah and Mikhail Gorbachev addressed the British Technion Society's dinner. An intermarriage?

Nicole Boxer, daughter of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, will marry Tony Rodham, brother of First Lady Hillary Clinton, in the White House May 28. The bride-to-be, a writer, has moved to Los Angeles to be vice president of development for Rob "Rudy" Fried's new production company.

With The Congregations

Sermon of the week Reverent Agnosticism — Rabbi Hillel Cohn, Congregation Emanu El, San Bernardino, Ca. Quotation of the week One of the fringe benefits of being a rabbi is being a teacher both on the bima and in the classroom. As a teacher one sometimes encounters the occasional jewel of a "student blooper" in an essay. The following is a "history of the world Part I" collected by teachers from eighth grade through college level. I thought that as we enter this cold winter month of February, these words of wisdom will warm the heart and bring a smile. "The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.Oneoftheirchildren,Cain,asked"AmImybrother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they d id not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites. "Pharaoh force the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened, which is bread made without any ingred ients. Afterwards, Moses up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew King, skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a raceof people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of Dav id's sons had 500 wives and 500 porcupines. Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns—Corinthian, Doric and ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the motherof Ach illes dipped him in the Rive Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in the "Illiad" by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity," in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name." If you enjoyed this piece, many other installments are possible—Rabbi Jerome P. David, Temple Emanuel, Cherry Hill, N.J. Israel mutual fund organized in U.S.

CHICAGO — A new mutual fund, the Israel Growth Fund, focusing on Israel companies listed on TASE, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, or Israeli companies traded on U.S.-based exchanges or NASDAQ, has been formed here. It will invest 35 percent of its portfolio in public com-

panies listed on TASE and up to 65 percent in Israeli companies. In announcing the fund, its managers pointed out that the TASE and the Israeli stocks traded in the U.S. have outperformed the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average in recent years.

Letters FREEDOM OF THE PRESS — The Post and Opinion encourages readers to send letters. All letters to the editor should be addressed to The Jewish Post and Opinion, 2120N.Meridian, Indianapolis, IN 46202. All letters should be typewritten (double-spaced) and may be edited for publication. Unsigned letters will not be considered, but names may be withheld upon request.

Silver corrected by Gershon Winer

Dear Rabbi Silver, In your column. Digest of the Yiddish Press, of Sept. 1, 1993, there are a number of inaccuracies with respect to the Yiddish Teachers Institute in Moscow which opened its doors in the fall of 1992. 1) The Iron and Steel Institute has no Yiddish Department. Four years ago, when I was invited by Yiddish student activists in Moscow to head the first Yiddish teachers seminar in Russia, in over half a century, which was scheduled forthatsummerofl989,I could get a visa only as a "visiting professor" at this institute. 2) My name is spelled:

Winer.

3) Neither the Jewish Agency, JDC nor Touro College and certainly not Bar-llan University provide the funding for this institute. The Foundation for the Advancement of Yiddish Studies, of which I am the Jerusalem chairman, and Rabbi Milton

Black Klezmer hit, Don Byron, praised NEW YORK — A black klezmer artist, Don Byron, gets featured in The New York Times Magazine and the verdict is that although he comes from the jazz fold and is considerably inventive, he carries on the tradition most effectively. He is compared to Mickey Katz, considered the finest in that field of Jewish music, and does not come off too unfavorably — in fact almost his equal. Stephen Sherrill notes that "Byron's predicament is oddly fitting, given the history of klezmer music. Klezmer, a Yiddish word meaning 'vessel of music,' was a product of Eastern European Yiddish culture and followed Jewish immigrants to the United States in the 1880's. It's not what one would call sacred music. Instead of humility, it evokes celebration, cheekiness, frivolity; it could back up a traditional wedding, or a wild cartoon chase scene, it sometimes sounds like Jewish hip-hop."

Arm is the North American chairman, secure contributions from friends of Yiddish for this purpose, as well as for our other two major projects: Yiddish in Israel public schools, and In-Service teacher courses at Tel Aviv University. 4) You refer to me as a rabbi. I have not served in the active rabbinate for more than a quarter of a century. Before making aliyah in 1970 I was Dean of Herzlia Jewish Teachers Seminary. After a decade of serving as professor of Yiddish language and literature at Bar-llan, I am now associated with the In-Service teacher training program at Tel Aviv University with its 67 certified Hebrew teachers enrolled in a retraining program for Yiddish teaching. There are more than 50 public schools in Israel where Yiddish is now offered as a foreign language elective. Gershon Winer Foundation for the Advancement of Yiddish Studies Jerusalem Note: Rabbi Silver reports items from various media; he

does not investigate their accuracy. Poem’s author Michael Quoist Dear Editor, In your recent Editor's Chair you referred to the poem about time. My assumption is that the poem came from Gates of Shabbat, which is the book that I created for the CCAR. The poem is by Michael Quoist and you can find it on page 83 of the book. I assume that the poem was taken from my book because that is the only place where I have seen the word God used in place of the original wording which was Lord. I thought you might want to know this. Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro Sinai Temple 1W0 Dickinson St. Springfield, MA 01108 Editor's note: We’re happy to be able togive proper credit to Michael Quoist for his poem which we printed after reading it in another Jewish paper which we credited but had not noted the name of the poet.

Mintz leads, but stiff fight ahead

NEW ORLEANS — The runoff race between Donald Mintz and Marc Morial for the position of mayor of New Orleans has been conflicted by a poster in the primary' which attacked four candidates and maligned Mr. Mintz also. Morial is the son of the city's first black mayor. Mintz, an attorney

and civic leader, topped the list of seven candidates by garnering 56,269 votes as against 49,530 for Morial. The claim by Mintz's opponents was that one of his supporters was responsible for the flyer in an attempt to indicate that he was a victim of anti-Semitism.

Robertson pro-JJ., gets Israel award

WASHINGTON — While Pat Robertson, founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of the daily news/magazine program The 700 Club, was tendered the Defender of Israel Award by the Christians' Israel Public Action Campaign (CIPAC), a

news release by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations notes that Rev. Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice supports Jews for Jesus. The award to Robertson was made at the U.S.-Israel Solidarity Rally at the Washington, D.C. Sheraton Hotel.

Israel is blamed for plane crash ROME — Israel was im- cusations as "ridiculous". The plicated in the mysterious claim is that two Israeli crash of an Italian domestic Phantom jets, supported by passenger plane in 1980 in other Israeli planes, mistook which 81 people lost their the downed plane for a lives, according to a book by French cargo plane journalists Claudio Gatti and transporting enriched uraGail Hammer. Israeli offi- nium from France to Iraq, cials have denounced the ac-

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