JEWISH $3.00 Frontier . BIBI'S ZIONISM'S WHAT AILS N TROUBLES ENTU R ZIONISM? SHILOAH LASSALLE Forgotten HANUKKAH Practical Spy Idealist SINCE 1 'i4 A LABOR ZIONIST JOURNA BUILD A 20 YEAR TRUST FOR SOMEONE YOU LOVE . (AND BUILD A HOME FOR THE ELDERLY) FUND YOUR RETIREMENT. (WHILE FUNDING EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS) SAVE FOR A CHILD'S COLLEGE EDUCATION . (AND SAVE LIVES BY SUPPORTING MEDICAL RESEARCH) - -------------------------------------------------------- At IHF, you can put your from one generation to the next . manity. What better way to save! YES, PLEASE SEND ME MORE INFORMATION ON HOW I CAN HELP EMOTIONAL INVESTMENTSHUMANITY AND SAVE ON TAXES WITH AN IHF TRUST OR ANNUITY . money to work for you, your HELP SAVE FOR YOURSELF, HELP SAVE ON TAXES. family and friends as well as YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS . Another added benefit- there humanity. There are many different finan- are tax advantages for each gift . 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ISRAEL HISTADRUT FOUNDATION, INC .276 FIFTH AVE.,NY, NY 10001 . • AMAL FUND MISHAN FUND ISRAEL HUMANITARIAN FUND ISRAEL HEALTHCARE FUND • PHILANTHROPY & EDUCATION FUNC JEWISH CONTENTSNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1997 Frontier Israel 4 SINCE 1934 BIBI'S TROUBLES Misha Louvish A LABOR ZIONIST JOURNAL THE KNESSET WINTER SESSION 6 Susan Hattis Rolef Founders Hayim Greenberg Zionism 8 Marie Syrkin TOWARD THE SECOND CENTURY Daniel Mann WHAT AILS ZIONISM? 12 Editorial Board Henry L . Feingold Henry Feingold, Chairman Saul B . Cohen Histadrut 15 Hyman Faine COLLISION COURSE 101 Jerry Goodman Jonathan J. Goldberg Emanuel S . Goldsmith THANKSGIVING STORY 17 Jerry Goodman William Finn Rabbi Mark W. Kiel Chava Lapin THE PHOTO ALBUM 18 Jeffry V Mallow Edmund Pennant Daniel Mann Mordecai Newman Samuel Norich Biography 19 Michael S . Perry FERDINAND LASSALLE Joseph Adler Mark Raider Eduardo Rauch Holocaust Studies 26 Mordecai Shtrigler JEWISH RESISTANCE IN WWII David Rosenthal Ezra Spicehandler Phyllis Sutker David Twersky In Memoriam 28 TRIBUTE TO ISAIAH BERLIN 30 Books 29 Nahum Guttman REUVEN SHILOAH: The Man Behind Editor I the Mossad, by HAGGAI ESHED Eric Silver "TO MY MEMORY SING" 31 by ROSALIND BYRON CHAIKIN Nahum Guttman NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS If you plan to move, please notify Letters 25 us six weeks in advance . Contributors 16 JEWISH FRONTIER (ISSN-0021-6453) is published bi-monthly by Labor Zionist JEWISH FRONTIER Letters, Inc . Editorial and advertising offices at 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 . Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY . POSTMASTER : Send address changes to Circulation, Jewish Frontier, 275 Seventh Avenue, 17th Floor, New York, 275 Seventh Avenue NY 10001 . 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Distributed by Bernhard De Boer, Inc ., 113 East Centre St ., Nutley, NJ 07110. 3 ISRAEL BIBI'S TROUBLES By Misha Louvish 1 1s the first Prime Minister of Israel direct- This "smelly maneuver," as it was widely ly elected by the entire adult population, "Bibi" dubbed, was unsuccessful, but it convinced Binyamin Netanyahu has unprecedented pow- many of the need for a fundamental change, ers, but he also faces unprecedented problems . and an association headed by Professor Uriel The old method had obvious faults, but many Reichman persuaded a narrow majority in the people feel that the disadvantages of the new Knesset to pass a law providing for the holding method outweigh its merits. of two votes : one for prime minister, on an indi- In Israeli elections the voters have to choose vidual basis, and the other for the Knesset between lists of candidates submitted by the according to the old system . various parties, and the 120 members of the This change in Israel's constitution has had a single-chamber Knesset are slotted in propor- marked effect on the party political map . It has tion to the votes obtained by each list. enabled the electors to split their votes, sup- Until last year, after the results were an- porting one of the candidates for prime minister nounced, the President (who is himself elected without necessarily backing his party . by the Knesset, but has very limited execu- As a result, there are no less than eight par- tive powers) consulted the representatives ties represented in the government coalition of the parties and called upon the Knesset today, and any one of these parties could de- member regarded as most likely to succeed to prive it of its majority by defecting. form a coalition which would obtain a vote of The largest party, the Likud, won only 22 confidence. seats at last year's general election, and it is At this point a most unedifying series of actually outnumbered by the alliance of reli- intrigues usually ensued, with parties de- gious parties, which has a total of 23 . The manding the most prestigious and potentially Likud, however, had formed a single list with profitable posts as the price of their support . two smaller parties: Gesher ("Bridge"), headed Until 1977 the Labor Party dominated the by Foreign Minister David Levy, which stresses scene and was always able to form a coalition social problems, and Tsomet ("Crossroads"), led government, but since the late Menahem by Raphael Eitan, the hawkish Minister of Begin's victory in that year there has been a Agriculture, a former army chief of staff. constant struggle between Labor and the anti- This gives the alliance a total of 32 seats, socialist Likud, with the two parties some- almost equal to Labor's 34, and the coalition times in alliance in "national unity" govern- has a total of 66 . There have been ominous ments, and always in competition. rumblings from Levy in connection with the The intrigues involved in forming and main- peace process and from his supporters in re- taining coalition governments brought the sys- gard to budgetary problems . tem into disrepute, and the climax came in I leave it to Frontier readers to compare the 1990, when Shimon Peres tried to bribe Avra- new Israeli system with that of the United ham Sharir, a prominent member of the Likud, States . The directly elected Israeli prime to join his coalition by offering him ministerial minister is not in the same position as an office not only in the present Knesset but also American president, but it is very difficult - in the next one if Labor would again be able to almost impossible - to get rid of him. Accord- form a coalition. ing to the new law, he can be deposed by a vote JEWISH FRONTIER of eighty members of the Knesset . media that if he had known in advance about He could also have to face the electorate the operation in Amman, he would have op- again if the Knesset decided on new elections, posed it. but then the MKs too would have to risk their Security, too, is relevant to the latest Netan- seats - a prospect that must give them pause . yahu scandal: about a statement whispered to (One Gesher member, however, has called for the noted Kabbalist Rabbi Kedouri and caught new elections in which his faction would be by the microphone . "The Left," the Prime Min- independent .) ister said, "have forgotten what it is to be A third possibility which would unseat the Jews. They give the Arabs a piece of land, and prime minister would be his failure to pass the rely on them to protect us!" annual budget in time, but this, too, would In spite of the official spokesman's effort to compel the Knesset members to stand for re- explain away this statement, there has been election. Although such an eventuality is not wide-spread indignation at the slur against very likely, it must be taken into account half the nation contained in the first sentence . in view of the complaints from Gesher, Equally if not more objectionable, however, is the National Religious Party and Yisrael Ba- the demagogic smear against the Oslo agree- aliyah, the new-immigrant party headed ments contained in the second . by Natan Sharansky, that the draft budget What we are talking about is the Rabin- does not provide the promised benefits for Peres government's historic efforts to open the their constituents .