San Diego Jewish World~home page


	San Diego Jewish World 'There's a Jewish story everywhere'

Vol. 1, No. 130

Friday Afternoon, September 7, 2007

Community Phone & Email Directory

Jewish World Community Calendar

AJE Makor Calendar

UJF Community Calendar

Search This Site
(click here)

Jewish Forum questions: join the discussion;
click here

Jewish Grapevine files

Back issues by date

Back-issue headlines

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS; THEY ARE HELPING TO BRING San Diego Jewish World TO YOU:
●Agency for Jewish Education
●America's Vacation Center
●Bubbla Packaging
●Chabad at University City ●Congregation Beth Israel
●Elijah's
●Humanistic Jewish Congregation
●I'm There For You Baby radio show
●In the Know radio show
●Israel Guide Dog Center
●JCC Maccabi games
●Jewish American Chamber of Commerce
● Jewish Community Foundation
●Jewish Family Service
● Museum of Man: Journey to the copper age
●Ohr Shalom Synagogue
●Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego
●San Diego Community Colleges
●San Diego Jewish Academy
● Seacrest Village Retirement Communities ●Tifereth Israel Synagogue

Columnists/
Writers
*David Amos
*Laurie Baron
*Judy Lash Balint
*Shoshana Bryen
*Cynthia Citron
*Carol Davis
*Rabbi Wayne Dosick
*Garry Fabian
*Gail Forman
*Sandy Golden
*Gerry Greber
.*Norman & Roberta Greene
*Alex Grobman,PhD
*Donald H. Harrison
*Irvin Jacobs, MD
*Natasha Josefowitz
*Bruce Kesler
*Judith Apter Klinghoffer
*Rabbi Baruch Lederman
*Dov Burt Levy
*Elizabeth Levy
*Ya'acov Liberman
*Bruce Lowitt
*Joel Moskowitz, MD
*Joe Naiman
*Sheila Orysiek
*Yoni Peres
*Fred Reiss
*Michael Rosen
*Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal
*Dan Schaffer
*Ira Sharkansky
*Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
*David Strom
*Lynne Thrope
*Eileen Wingard
*Isaac Yetiv
*Edward Zeiden
*Heather Zeiden

Contact us
Email: sdheritage@cox.net
PO Box 19363
San Diego, CA 92159
(619) 265-0808

San Diego Jewish World is a publication of The Harrison Enterprises of San Diego, co-owned by Donald & Nancy Harrison.

San Diego Jewish World by email

Would you like to receive an e-mail each evening with an interactive list of our stories similar to the one below?

Simply e-mail your request to us at sdheritage@cox.net with the word "subscribe" in the subject line of your message form.

This service, updating you on Jewish news from around the world, is free, and you may unsubscribe at any time!

(Please click on headline below to jump to the story)

Israel and Middle East

$2.4 billion for Israel included in Senate version of Foreign Operations bill

If Iran has 3,000 centrifuges up and running, you can start the countdown

Dov Burt Levy: The unheeded words of peace

Europe

Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi: Albania and the Holocaust: Jewish Survival & the Ethics of ‘Besa’

United States of America

NJDC demands Democrat Moran retract his 'Israel lobby' comment

Saperstein welcomes court decision narrowing impact of Patriot Act

Judaism

Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal: We still refer to Moses in the present tense: Moishe Rabeinu

Rabbi Baruch Lederman: The priest returns a favor

Features

Jewish Grapevine

Shabbat Shalom!

$2.4 billion for Israel included in Senate version of Foreign Operations bill

-SDJW Staff Report-

WASHINGTON, DC —The American Israel Public Affairs Commitee (AIPAC) and various members of the Senate found much to praise in the Senate's version of the $34 billion Foreign Operations Appropriations bill approved Thursday night.

To begin with, there was $2.4 billion in military aid to Israel. In a news release, AIPAC said this amount "represents the last year of a 10-year-plan between Israel and the United States to phase out economic aid to Israel while gradually increasing the amount of military aid.

"Composing about one percent of the federal budget, the amount of foreign aid spending is a cost-effective way to demonstrate U.S. leadership and protect American interests around the globe."

The bill also included several provisions by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (Democrat, New Jersey) which he listed as follows:

● "Middle East Peace: restoring $5 million in funding for the Middle East Regional Cooperation Program, a vital program facilitating people-to-people interaction between Israelis and Arabs in the scientific community. The Bush Administration chose to zero out funding for MERC in its FY 2008 State Budget request, despite its 25 years of success," Lautenberg said.

● "Libya: blocking $110 million in funding for the construction of a U.S. embassy in the Libyan city of Tripoli because of the Libyan government's failure to fully resolve outstanding claims to the families of victims of terrorism from the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland and 1985 LaBelle Discotheque bombing in Berlin, Germany," the New Jersey Democrat added.

●Refugees: extending the Lautenberg Amendment," which has granted over 400,000 people, who are proven victims of religious persecution in the former Soviet Union, Vietnam and Laos, refugee status in the United States," Lautenberg said.

Senators Joe Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) and Norman Coleman (Republican, Minnesota) were part of a group of senators who were able to restore $50 million for aid to dissident and democratic groups inside Iran. The administration had cut a $75 million budget to $25 million for this purpose.

"At a time when the Iranian regime is doing everything in its power to roll back dissidents and democrats, Congress has sent a powerful signal that we stand with the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom," Lieberman said. "There is an inextricable link between the domestic repression of the Iranian regime and its aggression abroad. Supporting Iranian dissidents is not only a moral imperative; it is a strategic necessity."

All 13 Jewish senators—nine Democrats, two Republicans and two Independents—voted in favor of the bill, which now goes to a Senate-House conference committee.

The measure had won 241-178 passage in the House in June after the Republican caucus decided to vote against it, partially in protest of a provision within the omnibus bill that would have permitted the United States to disseminate contraceptives to non-governmental organizations overseas.

Recalling that vote, the National Jewish Democratic Council issued a news release to "reverse course, drop their opposition to the bill, and stand with their Senate counterparts."

"Senate Democrats and Republicans alike should be applauded for their support of the Foreign Aid Appropriations Bill, and friends of Israel should be encouraged that Foreign Aid continues to enjoy bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate," said NJDC Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "Here's hoping that the House Republican leaders are swayed by public pressure and reconsider their opposition to Foreign Aid."

However, the Senate version includes what amendment co- authors Senators Barbara Boxer (Democrat, California) and Olympia Snowe (Republican, Maine) describe as the repeal of the "Global Gag Rule," precluding official U.S. involvement in the dissemination of birth control information.

“The repeal of the Global Gag Rule policy is long overdue,” Boxer said. “Thousands of women have died because of this dangerous policy, and I will work as hard as I can to see that it is finally overturned.”

The Boxer-Snowe Amendment repeals the Global Gag Rule, which President Bush established by executive order on his first working day in office in 2001. Also known as the Mexico City Policy, the Global Gag Rule denies U.S. international family planning assistance to foreign non-governmental organizations that use their own funds to counsel women on the availability of abortion, advocate for changes to abortion laws, or provide legal abortion services.

The preceding story incorporates information provided by AIPAC, NJDC, and the offices of Senators Boxer, Lautenberg and Lieberman

Israel and Middle East