Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 12, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 20, 1986 Page: 4 of 20
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TEXAS JEWISH POST THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1986 POSTORIAL PAGE 4
postoriols, opinions, etc
• ••
Leo Frank's Case Is Closed
Leo Frank was 24 years old when he was
dragged from a jail cell and lynched by an angry
mob near Atlanta in 1915 for a murder he said he
never committed. Now, more than 70 years after
the gruesome night, probably the worst single
case of anti-Semitic violence in the United States,
the State of Georgia awarded a posthumous
pardon to Frank.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles had
in 1983 refused to grant a pardon to Frank
despite the revelations that year by Alonzo
Mann, who came forward and said that as a young
boy in the Atlanta pencil factory, he saw another
man carrying the body of a 13 year-old Mary
Phagan. Mann said he did not speak out at the
trial for fear of reprisals from the murderer.
But Mann’s assertions, in affidavits first given
to The Tennessean a daily newspaper in Nash-
ville, reopened a case that has haunted Jews for
many years. With the new information, Jewish
groups petitioned the Board in 1983, but despite
support from Governor Joe Harris, the Board
rejected the appeal.
But just recently the Anti-Defamation League
of B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Congress,
the American Jewish Congress, and the Atlanta
Jewish Federation submitted a new petition
arguing that Frank’s innocence need not be
proven — only that he was denied justice. The
Board apparently concurred with this
assessment.
That Frank did not receive fair treatment of
the law is evident. For example, outside the
courthouse in Milledgeville, Georgia, crowds
chanted “Hang the Jew.” He was given a death
sentence for the 1913 murder of Phagan whose
beaten and strangled body was dumped into the
factory basement.
The Board asserted in its ruling: “The funeral
of Mary Phagan, the police investigation and the
trial of Leo Frank were reported in the
overblown newspaper style of the day. Emotions,
were fanned high.”
After Gov. John Slaton commuted Frank’s
sentence to life in prison, a mob stormed the
Governor’s mansion in Atlanta. Frank was soon
abducted from his prison and lynched near Mary
Phagan’s home in Cobb County on August 17,
1915. In the anti-Semitic climate, other Jews were
subjected to attacks, store windows of Jewish-
owned shops were destroyed and many Jews fled
Georgia.
The pardon now closes the file on the case of
Leo Frank, a man denied justice and, without
question, the victim of perjury and prejudice in
Atlanta. The parton removes a tragic stigma from
the State of Georgia, and from the collective
conscience of the nation.
Near East Report:
BY MJ. ROSENBERG
Jn an interview with the
Paris daily Le Martin (Feb.
28), Prime Minister Shimon
Peres said that he hoped that
President Hosni Mubarak
“overcomes his current
problems.” Asked if he would
send Mubarak a message of
support, Peres implied that
he doubted such a message
would do Mubarak much
good. But he added that he
had confidence that
“Mubarak will win this battle
for Egypt and for peace.”
If anything, Peres was
understating Israel’s support
for the embattled Mubarak.
In the eight years since the
Camp David peace treaty
went into effect, it has
become all too easy for us to
take it for granted. But Peres
doesn’t — and we shouldn’t.
On March 8, the Jerusalem
Post’s Hirsh Goodman
reported on the opening of a
new road that runs 120 miles
along the Israel-Egypt border
to Eilat, Israel’s Red Sea
port. The road “traverses a
wonderland of dunes and
canyons, desert vistas, and
great open plains — all ablaze
with a profusion of colors and
hues that leave one
mesmerized, almost
overpowered by the beauty of
it all.”
The most beautiful part,
Mubarak's Troubles
however, has more to do with
politics than with
topography. Nine miles from
the point where the road
begins, the barbed wire that
separates Egypt and Israel
disappears. Goodman writes
“You are left with white,
undulating, virgin dunes on
either side, punctuated only
by an occasional reminder
that you are driving along a
border dividing two countries
at uneasy peace. There are
some places where there is no
fence at all — the border
being delineated by
numbered concrete blocks —
and others where the fence is
so low that with an effortless
hop you could be in Egypt.”
Goodman says that “with
the watch-towers and fences
behind you, you have a sense
of vastness. Suddently Israel
doesn’t feel small anymore.”
Goodman paints a
wonderful picture of an
Egyptian-Israeli border that
is like the U.S.-Canadian one,
a border of peace — without
barbed wire or sentry posts.
Of course, that is only part of
the picture. The Egyptians
continue to • keep their
ambassador far from the Tel
Aviv embassy. Normalization
remains at a standstill. There
is the ugly and frightening
matter of the Sinai murders
of seven Israeli tourists who
were gunned down last
October at Ras Burqa. Still,
the new Eilat road (called
Kveesh Ha-Shalom or Road of
Peace) holds out the
tantalizing vision of all the
miracles which can be
achieved if the peace treaty
survives and the peace
deepens.
It is that vision which
keeps Shimon Peres from
criticizing Mubarak and
which leads him to make
concessions over Taba. He
has not forgotten that the
Yom Kippur War — which
Mubarak’s predecessor
Anwar Sadat initiated prior
to embarking on his mission
of peace — cost Israel 3,000
young lives. Those who
contend that the Camp David
peace treaty is a mere "piece
of paper” would do well to
note that if such a piece of
paper had been signed in 1971
rather than in 1978, 3,000
Israelis (and how many
Egyptians?) would have lived
rather than been killed in the
desert sands. The Nobel
peace prize which was
presented to Sadat and then-
Prime Minister Menachem
Begin in 1980 was well-
earned. Fortunately, neither
of their successors wants to
return it.
That is why Peres will do
everything he can to assist
Mubarak. But that isn’t much.
Egypt’s problems are,
primarily, economic. The
country’s population is
soaring while national income
declines. Plummeting oil
prices not only reduce the
value of Egypt’s petroleum
but also cut into Suez Canal
revenues. (There are fewer
oil tankers paying to use the
waterway.) The three million
Egyptians living in the Gulf
States are sending back less
and less money because of the
oil depression. In recent
months that source of foreign
capital has started to dry up
and Egypt has already lost as
much as $4 billion. On top of
all that, Mubarak has to
confront Islamic
fundamentalism which has
even greater appeal during
hard times.
In short, things don’t look
good for Mubarak. That is
why Peres and the Reagan
Administration are worried.
They understand that the
“frozen peace” is far from
ideal — but that it is
preferable to the alternatives
that might be offered by any
of Mubarak’s potential
successors. They also know
that if Mubarak goes, Egypt’s
close relationship with
Washington would probably
go with him. This is one
situation that is worthy
worrying about.
E
ft
I
Changes Welcomed In Philippines and Haiti
BY RABBI MARC
TANENBAUM
The collapse of the mili-
tary dictatorships in the
Philippines and in Haiti is a
real boost for the cause of
democracy and human
rights in the world today.
I first visited the Philip-
pines in 1978 and earlier in
the 1950s, I went to Haiti.
There were common pat-
terns in both countries that
led me to wonder why both
the Philippines and Haiti
had not exploded in vio-
lence much before now.
In both nations, the
disparity in wealth and
living conditions between
the very rich and the
desperately poor was heart-
breaking. When I was in the
Philippines on a fact-find-
ing mission to the Vietnam-
ese refugee camps, I saw
with my own eyes thous-
ands of impoverished Fili-
pinos living in worse condi-
tions that the Vietnames
boat people outside Manila.
Meantime, Ferdinand and
Imelda Marcos and their
cronies were luxuriating in
imperial wealth. Any claims
for equality or justice were
suppressed by their military
forces.
I saw similar injustices in
Haiti where Papa Doc
Duvalier and his benighted
son, lived as medieval ty-
rants oppressing their peo-
ple through police terror.
It is to the credit of
President Reagan and Sec-
retary Shultz that they have
finally played a catalytic role
in helping move these
governments from right-
wing dictatorships to dem-
ocracy without violent re-
volution and a minimum of
bloodshed.
The Government of Israel
and the small Jewish com-
munities in the Philippines
(about 250 people) and Haiti
(30 people) have joined the
United States in welcoming
these victories for democ-
racy. But now the real work
of economic justice and
social reconstruction begins,
and all Americans should be
giving these peaceful demo-
cratic revolutions their full-
est support.
I
I
I
Fist Pounding Soviet Delegate
Unleashes Anti-Semitic Diatribe
GENEVA [WNS] - A
fierce attack on Israel by a
fist-pounding Soviet dele-
gate who likened Zionism
to neo-Nazism triggered an
angry three-way exchange
pitting Israel and the United
States against the Soviet
Union at a session of the
United Nations Human
Rights Commission here on
March 6.
“We have never heard
such harsh language and
such blatant hate at this UN
forum,” said one Western
delegate referring to Soviet
delegate Dimitri Bykov’s
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tirade against Israel. The
verbal warfare erupted in
the course of a debate on
measures against totalitar-
ian ideologies and practices.
Representatives of Jewish
non-governmental organiza-
tions attending the ses-
sion said they could not
recall when a Soviet dele-
gate had been so openly
anti-Semitic and so unre-
strained in his attacks on the
U.S. as well as Israel.
Eykov alleged a spiritual,
political and ideological rela-
tionship between Fascism
• '*’» - i i •'*’% i * • % « % iV»'» »V* » » \
_«*««**•**•-»*****»*«• • * *
and Zionism and accused
Israel of practices in the
Middle East that aped
Hitler’s laws and methods.
He also charged that Jews
helped Hitler to power and
financed his war machine.
Ephraim Dubek, the Is-
raeli delegate said he had
never heard such virulent
and vicious anti-Semitism in
the Palais des Nations and
doubted that even the Nazis
ever resorted to such dia-
tribes against Jews in the
old League of Nations. He
said he thanked God the
See Fist Pounding pg. 20
‘.'. V
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 12, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 20, 1986, newspaper, March 20, 1986; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753129/m1/4/: accessed June 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .