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Newsletter : 9fax0216.txt
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>PD
>Israel Faxx
>JN Feb. 16, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 32
Low Election Fares
Israel Faxx Staff Report
El Al, Israel's national airline, has announced plans to fly
thousands of Israelis home for the May 17 election. The "Fly and
Vote" plan allows Israelis who are eligible to vote to pay a
special low fare from May 11 to May 17. From New York, the fare
will be $599, while Israelis flying from Europe will pay up to
$300.
Israel will Upgrade Croatia's War Planes
By David Gollust (VOA-Jerusalem)
The defense ministers of Israel and Croatia have signed an
agreement under which Israeli firms will upgrade Croatia's
Soviet-era fighter planes. The deal has drawn criticism
from some Israelis who say Croatia has not done enough to
confront World War 2 collaboration with Nazi Germany. Under the
deal, worth an estimated $100 million, Israeli companies will
install new engines and avionics on the Croatian jets.
Israel and Croatia established diplomatic relations in 1997 after
the government in Zagreb formally apologized for crimes committed
against Croatian Jews and others by the country's pro-Nazi
"Ustasha" government during World War 2.
But the arms deal has come under criticism from some Israeli
legislators and human rights activists, who note among other things
that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman -- in his memoirs --
expressed doubt that 6 Million Jews died in the Nazi Holocaust.
Opposition Labor party Knesset member Yossi Beilin said only a
cynical government like that of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
would be willing to "sell its soul" for such a contract.
Efriam Zuroff, the Israel representative of the Nazi-hunting
Simon Weisenthal center, said Croatia still has much to do
in coming to terms with the crimes of its wartime leaders:
"There's a serious issue regarding the manner in which...the history of World War 2 is taught in Croatia and the process of examining those crimes. And being willing to admit the active involvement of so many local residents, inhabitants, in the crimes committed is a very important one. If, in a city like Split, a street is named for a member of the Ustasha government--Mila Bourak --and despite protests by the Weisenthal center and others the name of the street is not changed, that's an indication that there are far too many people in Croatia who admire the Ustasha who led the state from 1941 to 1945.
Zuroff said the Zagreb government has shown a "lack of enthusiasm"
for prosecuting war criminals. He cited the recent release of Nada
Sakic, a former guard at the women's unit of the Jasenovac
concentration camp, where some 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed.
He said the Weisenthal Center intends to submit additional evidence
against her to Croatia and demand that she be put on trial like her
husband, Dinko Sakic, the former camp commander who is facing
prosecution.
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman here said Israel has accepted
Croatian apologies for wartime events, and sees no difference
between Croatia's relations with Israel and those with the rest
of the world.
Israelis Fight Over Child's Conversion
By IsraelWire
An Israeli couple is challenging the Interior Ministry over its
refusal to recognize as a Jew their baby daughter, adopted in South
America and converted in Britain.
"We adopted a child and the Ministry of Interior will not recognize
her conversion. The Orthodox are trying to force us to live their
way and we will not let them," said Ora Magen, mother of the
two-year-old girl whose name cannot legally be disclosed.
The Magens said that if their child had been converted in Israel
she would have had to undergo an Orthodox conversion and the family
would have "to become very religious", adhering to Jewish dietary
laws and strict observance of the Sabbath.
Instead they took the baby to Britain where she was converted by a
rabbi from the liberal Reform movement. Immigrants converted abroad by
Reform and Conservative rabbis have usually been registered as
Jews in Israel.
But the Interior Ministry, headed by ultra-Orthodox minister Eli Suissa, refused to register the baby as a Jew. The Magens are now taking their case to the Supreme Court.
"We're only asking the Supreme Court to require the Ministry of
Interior to register her as a Jew according to law and according to
precedence," said Ora Magen.
A spokeswoman for the Progressive Judaism movement, which appealed
to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Magen family, said the
Interior Ministry had yet to issue its response to the family's
court challenge.
The fight over conversion is one of the issues at the heart of the
secular-Orthodox cultural battle in Israel. Lacking clear
legislation, conversion cases have been left to the courts to
decide.
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