90^010-00 60 N£3R HISTC^ICAL SOC 1500 R ST -LINCOLN NE
SERVING NEBRASKA AND
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SINCE 1920 0, TtaM. S7B1 Prtd^r, 8«pt 2a, 1M0
U.S. to release loan guarantees for immigrant housing in Israel
Housing for Soviet Jews A jMNmgstar wirtckw w • jfiwUi N«tioBal Fowl Mlldiinr pnpvw kad is btad't I^tev itamt tot iMMdNg aew|y aRhrtd Soviat Jon. In viiw ot tkt a«tkipaM avrival of • adBkB or Bon iaiaigraBta !• th* ooaiHC jMra, lh» JNF, «wi«r Uy Opvattw ProndMd Lana eaaydlgiV b bteMitrNt Ita la^ dmrdoiMBeBt ath tlhMM, prfauvQjr ia the GaUlw aad Nagav nfioBa.
By David Friedman and Howard Boaaabarg WASHINOTON(JTA) —The Bush administration has agreed to issue guarantees for *400 million in loans for Israd, so that it can provide housing for Soviet Jeiwish inunigranta, Isra^ Finance Mhiister Yitzh&k Mods'i said "The guarantee of $400 milUoo to now valid," Mods'! told the Jewish Tel«gr^>hic Agcocjr after meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and IVeaaory Secretary Nicholas Brady. An Israeli Embaaqy offidal said the ftul details would be woritad out dm^ ing meetings in If aw Yorit between Sscretary of State James Baksr and Is-
raeli FiKeign Minister David Levy. Although Congress approved the loan guarantees last qiring, the administratian has held up final approval untfl it receives sssunmca; that the moo^ willoot be Uaed to help Soviat Jaws settle hi the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.
ly facing the United Sutee. "WedidnotgohitoRiedfics," he said. "We dOscuased the overall situation." Moda'i denied nuking any specific requests for U.S. ssaistanoe. "I didn't come this time to ask for anything, just to clarify poaitkiDa," he said.
Eagleburger assured Moda'i that the United States wmld do ito best to hdp Isrsal ovaroome its econmnic diffkuHiee. "We are aware of bnMl's needs snd hope to find a way" of meeting them, he was qooted by the embsssy official 88 saying.
"You don't come off a visit snd take all the goodies ^'«<^ come back home," Moda'i ssid. "We would rather have it on a continuousbasia than aooetime deal" The finance mhiister qiparenUy was refsnin^ to his profMsal that the United Statee caooalIanwl's»3.7bilUoo military debt
Moda'i said hsdiscassed with adffliniatratioD officials both Israel's new economic phn snd the ec<nomic proUems current-
Israel's total dsbt to the United SUtee is 94.5 billion.
The curious case of KolNldrei By BabW Btntd 8.1 )C<nnlskt IMt JtiBlili Tittm^Ut Aamtf. IM) ST. PAUI#-Kol Nkirai is ooe of tlw most popular and powarfiil prayen to be ftwnd in Jewish liturgy. Yet it is not rsa^r a prayer but a legal fommla which doee not oven mentkn the name of Ood. The origin of its famous roelo4y is unknown snd its inchiaion in the prayer book was strongly opposBd by several inmninent rabbis. The setting of Kol Nidrai iriik:h begins the Yam Kip:|iur service i» that of a Jewish court. Two people hold Tonh aerafls at either ekle of the cantor, thus oon^tutfaig • Bath Dfai, a court of three which 1^ required for the hgri pnoadon of granthig the dispsBMtiaB limm The Kol Nidrei is praosded by a brief paragraph itf> IvoUng the Acadmrdta Hl|;h. wfak^ is the heavenly iij^ad)^ of rabbis. Because the redtatiaa ia tai the natura <>f a court procedure, whicli could not be conducted oc 'a hoUd«r, it is ledtad befon sunset. Since it is chanted beCon urk, it ia the practice to put on the tallit, or jirayer ahawL The test ia a dedaratioa of the annulment of vows. It ia a pridss togsl formula in which the worshiper proclaims that aU psrsooal vows, oaths, etc that tbty made i^fnwltthigly, raahly or nnkaowhi|AK (uxi *1>^ coaaai^^aotly cannot be folfiUad) daring the year ahottid be I floosiders4.null snd void. ; Howavsr, k shoukl be pointed oat that the Tahnud OTtBM 8:W MOV «si^t)y,''Yarn Klivsiir atoosa for sins ^Ugafaiat God. Yott Kippur does not atone for sine i^ifahisttfiothsr human being until one has plsestad the psnoo ofteodedi" In ordar to understand tl»nBture and iJ^mctkm of Ibii Nkfaei w« nwst go bKJc to bihUcal times. I^^mao It was oommoa pnctios for people to make vowa ^that eoaU not possiUy bo haoocwL ^1 After the SsooodTiinplswssdMtniyed, this practice t'coatfanisd amoag the poopls. HW letden of IJw con^amnity wen troobled, for they viewed s pereon'e word |M Us or her bond. t Failing to cflovinee the people of the desiraUUty of [avoiding rash profOises altofsthar, the rabbis of the iTslimud fioslly crested^ s ftinnsl ritual for annuUfaig [^ept vows. *' No one knows forcertain, but it probebtywaa started i,«round the ntaitli eastury. lUv Anmun'a aUdiir contabis the firat compile known text of Kol Nidrai, quite dif'^vM: from the Talnudic legal farmak. Kd Nidrai was [M'ooUsctive rather than an hidivtdual annulment. It ia ji niatuie of Hebrew and Aramaic, the common lani^uage than hi use.
llMre an two otiMr eayteatioBS fsrlte hitrodnctkML AcMidfaig to BabU Mordecai bsnHOUl; who lived hi Oermaoy in the 13th century, this formula wss institoted fay Rabbi Meir b«a Banich, the Maharam hbRoth' enborg (d. 1298), to permit traasgreeeon whoJiad baiB excomiTHinicated because of their deflsnce of commimsl regulationa to worahip with the congragatkm. Toward the eod of the 19th oeatuiy, Joeeph Bloch propoeed tiie theory that Kol Nidtei aroae in the eeventh oeetmy when secret Jews, who bad been convwted to Chriatisaity after persecution by the Viaigoths (590-711), would come to the synagogue on Yarn K^ pur eve. According to Bkxh, Kol Nidrei waa their ospreaakui of orerwhdainc^pM at their apoetaay, and wu their mean^ of seeking absohition for vows they had been forced to tdw to an sliea faith. Bloch daimsd that in subaequeat centurias, during persecutiaBS by the kter Bysantiae ndan (700-86(9. and atill later under the Spenish laqafaitkm (1991-1492), the Kol Nidiei served s similar poipoee. When it first sppesred it wee condemned by many genarationa of rabbis. It waa oppoaed on the grounds that it offered an easy msans to avoid peraoQ^obligations. After all, Kol Nidrei theoretically iliade it poeaifale for eomeooe to take a vow, knowing that it couU be annulled next Yom Kippur. AoconUni^, the rabbis cleariy ruled it oould not be qqpUed to promisee made to another peraoa. In the 12th century tb^ changed the warding to tasofe tUe. Unfortunately, Kol Nidrei ahMt served aa a pretext for anti- Semitic alandar. During the Middle Ages hi par ticular, Chriatians uaed the. formula aa an excuse of isolating Jews from partidpatkm in Mksinsss, chdmfaig that the wwd of s Jew coukl not be trusted When tlM Reform moveDOeot began in 19th-century Germany. Kol Nidrai wee <Wated from the Utwgy. It was not antn 1962 that the text appeand hi the Union Prayer Book and now in the new Oatea of Repsatance. The qiirituid power of Kal Nidrei amoag the people resisted every chaUaage (Nit to It ovsr s pariod of 10 etaturiea, and it «ooiae down to ua today u oas of the moot beloved Utnrgical aUmeets ia all Judaism. Then have beia maiw difCarent melodies for Kol Nidni. A populsr myth advanoea the notkm that a Spanish Manraw) cempoead the xMlody we use todsy. Other scholara have hypotheeiasd that tba makidy aroes in leth-oantuty Oannany. But no one knows for certefai.
end the naiaie's erigjaiamalut.nyaasrious Howevsr, its eaioticnal appea raaajdne oveipoaleriagA Oarman poet, a aoa-Jei^, foood Umeaif ia a smsO synsgogpsjastbeiaratl^atoaaeieatasrvice. "Suddaafy," he wrote, the cantor, vtth a dbaiity sanest bsertnading mekidy. rich hi sws and suppUostioa. began to sing. "I had to struCgie with a rara fsaUag of emotkn. Feverishly I sighed Hot, burning teen pooring from one's eyes csst a woodrous veil and at the tame time purified I Bed into tho ni^ snd cams boms. In that unforgattsble hour, no blaA ipadt detOed my souL" Ito hsd heard that tqystcrioue bnxxUag mekxiy. the Kel Nidrei. It is s song which coavertsd s Cethotte ptieet to the synsgogns. Aims PsIUar. It brought FVsas Rooanswaig bade to his faith whan he had afaready determined to leave it. A great Chriatian theokigian wrote the claasio book "The Ideeof theHo^." wWchspssksof thssHfa of awe k Ufe, whaa t« cane home for a North Afrkaaa synagogus whsn hs Ustsned to the Kol Nidrai The best4aiowa musicel sstting of this prsyar came from the tandn of a noihJsw, Max Bruch. iriikh was written for oeOo sad orehsetra having bean commisshaied by the Jewish eooaaunlty of UvarpooL For us toifaqr, the Kol Nkfati caa symboUse the need to despaa our ssBisitlviQr toward the reeehrti<wa which we make hi oar finest moawato of spiritual osdakn. Kol Nidiei can earve na aa a nmindar that oaly by reeohito will and aatf-dladpline can ws hope to laeeao the distsnoe between avhat we an and what we ou^ to be. Tba aalf •righteous sad saugaess wUch stand hi the way of our spiritttsi growth nssd to be di^slsd by s conhaaion hi utter hnaflity. What awwapanisdlysuA s mediatioa. the recital of Kol NUrai prapaiee us for ths soul-ckNUisfaig aspariaaoe of Yom Kippur.
Sam Beber award to Herb Denenberg Formv Omahan Herbert S. Denenberg, natimially kdowa coiununer advocate and former Pennaylvanla Inaurance Commlaaioner, was honored recently with the Sam Beber ENatinguiahed AZA alumnus award at the 67th annual AZA convention. Mr. Denenberg'a acceptance apeech appears on page 10.