Israel in the News Apr/May1999
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Nazi hunter’s gloves donated to Yad Vashem
Brown suede gloves worn by a Mossad agent who helped capture Nazi SS leader Adolf Eichmann 38 years ago have been donated to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, the institution announced recently. Agent Zvi Malchin told Yad Vashem that he wore the gloves to avoid touching Eichmann with his bare hands when he dragged him into a waiting car, spokeswoman Iris Rosenberg said. The gloves were donated by Gabriel Adam, a US publisher who lost 186 relatives in the Holocaust.
Cornerstone laid for Yarmuk dam
A symbolic start was made recently on the first joint Israeli-Jordanian water project since the signing of the peace accord between the two countries four years ago. A ceremony to mark the laying of a cornerstone for a new dam to catch and retain the flood waters of the Yarmuk River was held at the site of the project, in the Adaslya area of Jordan. The $2.3 million project will enable the Jordanians to store millions of cubic meters of winter flood water from the river and divert it to Amman.
National Geographic appears in Hebrew
Hebrew has joined the group of select foreign languages in which National Geographic magazine appears.
“We tried for six years to convince the National Geographic Society to allow us to translate the magazine into Hebrew. They are a very conservative organization, and they had a long-standing policy against translating their product,” said Miki Tunis, CEO of Hed Arzi, which together with Ma’ariv-Modi’in is publishing the Hebrew edition.
“There are crazy people in Israel and I am one of them. When we approached National Geographic with our idea they were shocked. But when the magazine was translated into Japanese three years ago, the company realized that there are other people in the world who are also interested in the information in this global magazine. Israelis appreciate quality and like to feel they are part of the big world. Psychologically they want to be international,” Tunis added.
He said that in a few years, the magazine may add sections that have special interest for Israeli readers.
110,000 Russians may immigrate annually in light of ruble collapse
Up to 110,000 Russian Jews may immigrate to Israel each year, almost twice the current number, a Jewish Agency official was quoted as saying recently. Felix Decktor, press secretary of the Moscow branch of the agency, told the Interfax news agency that Russian Jews have been showing more interest in immigrating since the end of August. Russia’s latest economic crisis broke that month, when the government devalued the ruble and defaulted on its loans.
PLO official: State will ‘battle’ Israeli forces
Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO political department, was quoted as saying that the Palestinians will follow up their declaration of a state in May with a military campaign to drive Israel out of what he termed Palestinian lands. He told the Palestinian Authority daily Al Hayat al-Jedida that “after the Palestinian state wins recognition from most of the nations of the world, as expected, the Israeli presence on Palestinian lands will become illegal and we will fight this with weapons. The battle against the Israeli forces is a right reserved to us.”
(All articles are taken from The Jerusalem Post.)
