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Newsletter : 8fax0917.txt
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>PD>Israel Faxx
>JN Sept. 17, 1998, Vol. 6, No. 167
200,000 Israelis Will Go Abroad for Holiday Season
By IsraelWire
About 200,000 Israelis will be going abroad for vacations during the upcoming holiday season, for vacations of up to 10 days, says the union of travel agents. Tickets have been sold out for the most popular vacation spots. Travel agents report that London and Paris are the European cities in most demand by the Israeli holiday traveler, and Orlando (Florida) and New York are the most popular U.S. cities.
Arafat Prepares to Declare State
By Arutz-7 News Service
Palestinian preparations for their establishment of an independent
state on May 4, 1999 continue.
Yasir Arafat, speaking at a convention of the Arab League, called
upon the Arab nations' foreign ministers to support his plan to
establish a state. He also called upon the United States to
increase its pressure on Israel.
The Arab universities' Shabiba movement announced Wednesday, after
its leaders met with Arafat, that it will "begin a national and
spiritual program to meet the challenge of the new circumstances of
the 4th of May."
Arutz-7 correspondent Yehoshua Meiri reports Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak has played a key role in pressuring Arafat not to
accept Israel's conditional offer of 10-13% of Judea and Samaria as
a second withdrawal.
Meiri says that Mubarak has convinced Arafat to drag out the
process for a few more months, culminating in Arafat's unilateral
declaration of a Palestinian state in May 1999, the month in which
the Oslo framework officially elapses. The declaration will
reportedly be combined with an international conference led by
Mubarak and France's President Jacques Chirac.
Austria Bank To Review WWII Claims
By IsraelWire
A major Austrian bank said it is ready for a "comprehensive review" of its Nazi-era past and has already held talks in New York to resolve claims by Holocaust survivors.
In a statement, Creditanstalt and its parent company, Bank Austria, said its attorneys met in New York with lawyers for Holocaust victims on the compensation issue. Although the statement made no mention of any agreement, the bank said the talks were "constructive" and will continue.
The bank said it "is extremely anxious to have a comprehensive
review of the role of" Creditanstalt, which was taken over by
Germany's Deutsche Bank during the Nazi era.
"Out of moral responsibility towards the Jewish people and out of
homage to the indescribable suffering cause by the Holocaust," the
bank said it was committed to "an overall resolution of all matters
which exist in this connection."
New York attorney Edward Fagan, who represents a group of Holocaust
survivors, has been seeking compensation for gold stolen by the
Nazis from Jewish families and allegedly transferred by
Creditanstalt to Turkey during the Second World War.
The Austrian news magazine Profil, in its current issue, claims
Creditanstalt maintained "business contacts" with at least 13
concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mauthausen
and Dachau.
Profil said documents discovered in Polish archives showed that
Creditanstalt's branch in the Polish city of Krakow was used from
1941 for Polish families to transfer funds for use by relatives in
the nearby Auschwitz camp.
The magazine said the branch bank regularly received official lists
of those who had died in the camp so bank officials would know
which funds were not to be transferred.
Jewish Schools Experience Growth
By IsraelWire
Some students in Waltham, Mass., are tackling the usual: math and science, Spanish and history. But there's a new subject: religion, which will be taught in two to three class-hours per day, consisting of: Jewish ethics and the Talmud, Hebrew and the Bible.
That Jewish high school is one of more than 40 to open in the last
five years, including those in Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati,
Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and New Haven, Conn. From
elementary grades on up, Jewish schools are booming.
In 1960, an estimated 60,000 students nationwide attended Jewish
schools. That number has more than tripled to about 190,000
students in some 650 schools. Educators predict a rise to 225,000
in the next few years.
The surge in Jewish schools is remarkable considering that the
American Jewish population, estimated at 2 percent of the overall
population, is shrinking. And, according to a 1990 population study by
the Council of Jewish Federations, the percentage of Jews
marrying out of the faith 52 percent is growing.
Yet those demographics may explain the new popularity of religious
schools, which are almost uniformly Jewish, though religious
affiliation is not a requirement for admission. Many Jewish schools
are having trouble keeping up with the rapid growth.
The growth can also be attributed to a broader spiritual revival,
says Conservative Rabbi Joshua Elkin. Adults who ignored their
faith for years are returning, he says, and bringing their children
with them.
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