Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Yosef Tekoah, told the American Zionist Federation’s weekend convention that Israel “is at war with Arab terrorism” and will take necessary action to “bring an end to this scourge.” Addressing a mass anniversary celebration of the 75th year of Zionism and the 25th year of the State of Israel, Tekoah said that “governments should take action on their own to combat terrorism.”
He outlined several measures to the 500 delegates and several thousand guests such as prevent- ing those suspected of connections with terrorist groups from entering the country and taking further security measures. Tekoah said that the continuation of Arab terror is an obstacle to peace in the Middle East, that Israel is ready to negotiate seriously on an equal footing with the Arabs, but with no prior conditions, and that Zionism in the truest sense of the word is being implemented by Soviet Jewry.
At the convention, the American Sephardic Federation, operational in New York but a paper organization nationally since its founding in 1951, was reactivated. Prof. Daniel Elazar, head of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University, Philadelphia, told the delegates that 50 representatives of Sephardic communities had agreed to relaunch an effort to “stimulate” Sephardic identity in the US, Israel and other lands. There are an estimated 100-150,000 Sephardic Jews in this country. The Sephardic representatives attended the AZF convention where it was announced that the Zionist organization will cooperate with the Sephardic effort.
DIASPORA. ISRAEL, NEED EACH OTHER
Prof. Elazar, who called Sephardic Americans “a minority within a minority,” was elected acting chairman of the steering committee. Mati Ronen heads the New York branch. The revived organization is a unit of the World Sephardic Federation. In his address to the AZF convention, Prof. Elazar urged a “new federalism” for Jewish communities on the lines of the reorganization of the Jewish Agency into a partnership of Zionists and general Jewish community leaders. Including officials of Federations and Welfare Funds.
Avraham Schenker, head of the Department of Organization and Information of the World Zionist Organization, told the delegates that “Israel can no more exist and progress without the diaspora than the diaspora can survive without Israel.” He said the two “must give and take from each other and maintain a deep and ongoing partnership.”
Rabbi Israel Miller of New York was reelected AZF president. Mrs. Max L. (Faye) Schenk of New York, past president of Hadassah, was elected chairman of the AZF executive committee.
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