World Briefs

Israel to Get Less Money

The United States will propose $3 billion less in
supplemental military aid for Israel than the Jewish State had requested. An
Israeli official in Washington confirmed that Israel would be offered $1
billion as part of a U.S. war costs bill, but the White House is proposing $9
billion in loan guarantees, $1 billion more than Israel sought.

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon,
told American Jewish leaders that the supplemental aid for Israel has been
“sweetened” by agreeing to give the full $1 billion right away.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer has said the
supplemental package, which could total up to $100 billion, would be introduced
in the coming days.

British Soldiers Mute Religion

British Jewish soldiers serving in Iraq are being allowed to
erase mention of their religion from their dog tags in an attempt to escape
torture if captured. The British Ministry of Defense made the decision to allow
the removals following concerns expressed by the British Jewish community about
possible torture. There are an estimated 15 Jewish soldiers among the 45,000
British soldiers aiding the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Moynihan Dies at 76

Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who battled
the U.N.’s “Zionism is racism” resolution, died Wednesday at 76. In 1975, when
the United Nations denigrated Zionism as racist and called it a “threat to
world peace,” the then-U.S. envoy delivered an eloquent and emotional
defense of Jewish political independence that blasted the U.N. resolution as
anti-Semitic. “It had become a crime to be a Jew who wished to return to the
Jewish national homeland,” Moynihan later wrote. Moynihan led the campaign to
repeal the resolution, which was reversed in 1991. He also spearheaded efforts
to establish international recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Moynihan served in the Senate from 1977 to 1991.

Woman To Head CCAR

The Reform rabbinate will be led by a woman for the first
time. The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) has nominated as its
president Rabbi Janet Marder, 48, currently vice president of the CCAR and
senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.

Marder will begin her two-year tenure March 29 at the CCAR’s
2003 convention, after an election that is regarded as a formality.

She will succeed Rabbi Martin Weiner, senior rabbi at
Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco. The CCAR, which represents 1,800
Reform rabbis in North America, is the largest group of Jewish clergy.

Chabad to Send Pesach Kits to U.S.
Troops

Chabad-Lubavitch is sending 1,000 Passover packages to U.S.
Jewish troops serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and elsewhere. Rabbi Mendy
Katz of the Florida-based Aleph Institute, a subsidiary of Chabad, led a team
of rabbis and rabbinical students who assembled the Passover kits at a Rahway,
N.J., warehouse this week. The packages contain Haggadahs, matzahs,
horseradish, gefilte fish and seder plates, Chabad spokeswoman Renee Glick
said.

Meanwhile, the Jewish Community Centers Association, the
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s New York Metropolitan Region and the
Jewish Federation of Rockland County, N.Y., organized a $25,000 effort to send
Jewish soldiers kosher-for-Passover foods, the New York Jewish Week reported.

The United Synagogue is also sending solo seder kits for
soldiers in the field who cannot join communal celebrations, the paper said.
The Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Chaplains Council estimates there are 1,500
Jewish troops in the Persian Gulf.

‘Pianist’ Earns Oscar Gold

 “The Pianist,” a searing film of one Jew’s survival in
Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, scored a major upset when it won three
Oscars this week. The film, which is based on a memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman,
garnered Academy Awards for director Roman Polanski, actor Adrien Brody and
screenwriter Ronald Harwood.

Their victories illustrated once again the enduring hold of
the Holocaust on the imagination and sentiments of the film industry. 
Polanski, who escaped from the Krakow Ghetto as a 7-year-old boy, was not present
at Sunday evening’s 75th annual Academy Awards. He is officially a fugitive
from the United States for having engaged in unlawful sexual relations with a
minor.

Less of a surprise was the Oscar for “Nowhere in Africa” as
the winner for best foreign film. “Africa” depicts a Jewish family that
resettles in Kenya after being forced to flee Nazi Germany.

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.