Ambassador Yehuda Blum of Israel and Rabbi Joseph Sternstein, president of the American Zionist Federation, told the National Board of the AZF last night that Jews throughout the world are “aware” and “aroused” by the emergence of international anti-Semitism.
Referring to the recent debate on the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia and attacks on Israel, Sternstein said that the assessment and appraisal that American Jews are “angered and aroused” is necessary, “lest there spread the notion that actions and decisions adverse to Israel can be conceived and implemented with the false confidence that they will be unrebuffed by an alleged supine and pliant American Jewish community.” Continuing, Sternstein declared:
“Our words are thus addressed to President Reagan. Permit us to see you as a friend. You offered assurances that the U.S. would stand by Israel. Let not this assurance be eroded by the gnawing teeth of burrowing enemies of Israel. We look for specific acts and deeds, rather than words, as a test of American policy. And sir, once and for all reject and repudiate the insidious and scurrilous sniping at Israel’s friends and supporters in the U.S.”
Noting that Israel and Premier Menachem Begin himself are targets of anti-Semitism and that international anti-Semitism is on the rise, Blum said that “many of us find it hard to accept that anti-Semitism has not been banished from the earth and we are not suitably prepared for change in the international climate,” a change which he stressed has occured.
Blum cited “crude anti-Semitic jokes” not only in United Nations committees, but throughout the world. He pointed to “crude anti-Semitic statements” in the UN debates, and violent attacks on Jewish institutions in Antwerp, Vienna, Paris and the U.S.
During the Board meeting, Sternstein announced that the AZF established as a living memorial to the late Faye Schenk an endowment for an annual “Faye Schenk Memorial Lecture,” Mrs. Schenk headed the World Zionist Organization’s Organization Department in Jerusalem and was a past president of the AZF and Hadassah. Charlotte Jacobson, chairman of the WZO-American Section, said Mrs. Schenk “understood the totality and unity of the Jewish people.”
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