Margaret Costanza, assistant to the President for Public Liaison, told the 3000 delegates attending the 63rd annual convention of Hadassah, “When Jimmy Carter talked about a partnership between the government and the people, he meant groups like Hadassah,” The former Vice-Mayor of Rochester, added: “You should applaud yourselves. You have done marvelous jobs throughout the years.”
Ms. Costanza, whose address today ranged over a number of topics, stated that there is “a whole new spirit in the United States, when an open Administration will allow people who have never ever before been in the White House to come in, to come in and have input into politics that touch their lives.”
Regarding women’s rights, Ms. Costanza said “please apply it to yourself as an individual. Don’t try to meet somebody else’s goals as a woman, but your own. For God’s sake, don’t ever be ashamed of ever having made the choice of being married and raising a family. It’s not what you choose to do but the fact that you have a right to make that choice.”
Alluding to her disagreement with President Carter over Medicaid funds for abortion, Ms. Costanza said it was “not a rebellion, not an attack but a sharing of information with the man you work for. Jimmy Carter is a man who is so strong within himself that he not only accepts disagreement, he welcomes it. I am standing here as living proof of that.”
Regarding the term human rights, she said it “is being used rhetorically by a lot of people nowadays,” but Carter uses the phrase “sincerely.” Ms. Costanza defined human rights as the “right to human dignity for every human being.”
CHEMOTHERAPY CENTER AT HADASSAH HOSPITAL
At the Hadassah convention session last night, Dr. Zvi Fuks, head of the Oncology Department at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, said when the Moshe Sharett Institute of Oncology opened four months ago, “many prominent researchers from all over the world who saw the institute said it was one of the finest, best equipped and most beautiful institutes of its kind in the world.”
In his report on cancer research at Hadassah Hospital, Fuks said that a new chemotherapy center was already yielding satisfactory results. The radiation therapy department has “equipment which never before was operated in Israel,” he noted.
Mrs. Rose E. Matzkin, chairman of the Hodassah Medical Organization, reported that arrangements have been concluded for the manufacture and worldwide distribution of an ointment which is a promising treatment for some forms of skin cancer. The medication was developed by scientists at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem. She said the therapy, developed by Dr. Adam Bekierkunst of the Medical Bacteriology Department of the medical school and Dr. Haim Cohen of the Dermatology and Venereology Departments of the hospital, is the result of research going on for the past eight years on the biological activities of the Cord Factor in the ointment to penetrate the skin.
Jim Bishop, Jr., liaison officer for the Administration’s energy program, told the Hadassah delegates, “The best source of energy for the next 10 years is known as conservation energy. Energy leadership at the grassroots level is the single most important thing that can be done.” After Bishop’s speech, the 3000 delegates passed a resolution which called for effective national legislation in the area of energy conservation.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
