Mrs. Matskin New President Hadassah Urges U.S. Leadership in UN for Israel, Soviet Jews

Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, ended its 58th annual national convention tonight by passing resolutions calling for continued United States support for Israel and leadership in the United Nations, protesting Soviet policy toward Jews and urging a crackdown on airline terrorism.

This country’s Middle East policy “has helped to maintain the cease-fire and to deter Egypt from starting another round,” and “the American commitment to Israel is a bipartisan policy, reflecting the critical importance of a secure, independent, democratic Israel to United States interests in the Middle East,” the more than 3500 delegates declared. “Generous American supporting assistance and grants,” they added, “are helping Israel to maintain a viable economy and to absorb the influx of immigrants from the USSR and other countries.” The US, said another resolution, “must continue to play and maintain its role and leadership in the United Nations in all its efforts to advance international cooperation.”

Hadassah protested “vigorously” the USSR’s “denial of (a) basic human right…to tens upon tens of thousands of Jews waiting for emigration permits,” and called on the US to “exert maximum influence on the government of the USSR through every possible channel to achieve these objectives.” The resolution hailed the Israeli arrival of more than 30,000 Soviet Jews since January, 1971.

Hadassah also resolved that the US must “take the initiative” at the UN and among airline agencies in demanding that all major airlines and airports act “to take uniform and strict security measures to protect passengers, innocent bystanders, crew and property; to influence the world’s major airlines to refuse to service any nation offering haven and protection to avowed terrorists, and to call upon friendly governments to refrain from extending hospitality to groups or organizations overtly engaging in acts of international terrorism.”

Mrs. Rose Matzkin of Waterbury, Conn., a past vice president, past chairman of the National Youth Aliyah division and past chairman of the National Zionist Affairs division, was elected president of Hadassah, succeeding Mrs. Faye L. Schenk of New York, who served four one-year terms. Mrs. Matzkin is a member of the Executive Board of the World Confederation of General Zionists, chairman of the Executive Board of the American Zionist Federation, and a member of the Executive Committee of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. She is a Hadassah representative to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. As Hadassah president she is on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem which helps the women’s organization run the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School.

Mrs. Matzkin was born on Ellis Island, N.Y., the immigrant-arrival site. She joined Hadassah in 1934. She has served the Waterbury Jewish Federation and the local unit of the League of Women Voters, and will work full-time in the unpaid Hadassah presidency.

The convention, which voted to expand the Medical Center’s facilities to accommodate the thousands of foreign patients who seek care there, heard Mrs. Schenk elaborate last night on the enrolling of doctors and scientists. “Each one attends the professional medical program in his specialty to introduce him to Hadassah’s methods, philosophy and the most up-to-date medical knowledge in Western medicine,” she noted. Each is given Hebrew and English courses “not only for oral communication but to enable them to keep up with scientific writings.” and social workers are assigned to aid in absorption, she said. Additionally, she said, a tutor–“a sort of ‘buddy’ system”–aids each enrollee on his rounds and in his studies.