Jewish Post,Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 May 1996 — Page 12

MU Max 29. 1996 Obituaries Congregation president is Messianic Jew

Frances L. Loeb, 89, major benefactress

NEW YORK — The death of Frances L. Loeb at the age of 89 here removed from the New York scene the scion of one of its most prominent Jewish families. She was a major benefactor of Barnard College where the Adele Lehman Hall was named for her mother, of Central Park where the Loeb boathouse and the Children's Zoo are the result of her benefactions, the Lewisohn Stadium, named after her maternal grandfather, the Loeb Student Center at N.Y.U. and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar. Also a major benefaction was $70.5 M. to finance new faculty positions and scholarships at Harvard. She was active in the administrations of Mayors Lindsay and Beame and was the city's commissioner to the UN and its consular corps. One uncle was Governor Herbert H. Lehman and another was Chief Judge of the State Court of Appeals Irving Lehman. She attended Vassar but two years later married John Loeb, who survives her after a marriage of 69 years.

Albert Schlossberg, Nancy N. Frank commander of JWV of Pittsburgh

CANTON, Mass. — Albert Schlossberg, former national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of America, died here at the age of 77. He served in the Navy during World War II, joining the Boston Post No. 22 of JWV immediately on discharge. In 1956 he was elected New England Region Commander and after serving as a member of the National Policy Committee, he was elected national commander in 1970.

PITTSBURGH — Nancy Newman Frank, who served for 24 years as Jewish Family and Children Service's director of the department of services for the aged, died at the age of 84. She was named Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 1978 and in 1987 was the recipient of the United Jewish Fund's Doris and Leonard Rudolph Award for the outstanding professional in the Jewish community.

Judah Wattenberg of The Technlon NEW YORK — Judah University's Law School in Wattenberg, who served as 1927, he practiced until 1939. the first executive director of He left the Technion society in the American Technion Soci- the 1950's to resume his proety, died at the age of 96. A fession. graduate of Columbia Ruth P. Berger dies at San Diego SAN DIEGO — Ruth P. Alumna Award from SpringBerger, who chaired the Jew- field College and was the first ish Federation campaign in woman to serve on the board her native Springfield, II., died of St. John's Hospital and the here at the age of 74. She re- Springfield Chamber of Comceived the 1984 Distinguished merce. Emile Habibi dies at 73

HAIFA— Emile Habibi, was one of the founders of the the writer who won Israel's Israeli Communist Party and top literary award for chroni- advocated non-violence in cling the predicament of solving the Israeli-Arab conIsraeTs Arab citizens, died at flict. the age of 73. A Christian, he

Judge Paul Tobin of E. Liverpool

EAST UVERPOOL, Oh. — Judge Paul Tobin, who was active in many civic and philanthropic organizations, died at the age of 67. He was a past president of the Co'umbiana

County Bar Association and chairman of the Columbiana County Democratic Party. He was a brother of the late Judge

Louis Tobin.

LOS ANGELES — What can happen in Jewish life in America these days was illustrated by a report in Heritage Southwest Jewish Press here about the popular young president of a Conservative congregation in upstate New York, son of a founding family and believed to be the no. 1 financial donor who openly acknowledged last summer that he and his wife had embraced "Messianic Judaism." Steve Kowalsky wants to retain his membership in Temple Beth El of Utica while attending Messianic services twice a week.

The report by Ari L. Noonan stated that Kowalsky has not been thrown out because of the money he and his family brings in. President Charles Antzelevitch told Noonan the temple is waiting for direction from the national leadership of the Conservative movement. Kowalsky met his wife, Monica, in 1973 when Steve was performing with a rock band in Colorado where she was a waitress. Monica, who grew up in a Roman Catholic family in a small town in Louisiana, converted to Judaism.

Cleveland voucher plan Is contested CLEVELAND — The program by which parents of 1,500 Cleveland children may use vouchers for up to $2,250 to send their children to private or religious schools or participating public schools in adjoining districts scheduled for implementation this September is being challenged in the courts by a coalition of teachers' unions, public school administrators and civil libertarians. Agudath Israel of America is supporting the project as a friend of the court, contending that because the program assists parents, not individual schools, and because the funds provided may be used at parents' discretion for either public, private Or parochial schools, it fully meets the criteria for constitutionality.

Britons debate circumcision LONDON — A full debate on a possible prohibition of doctors carrying out religious circumcisions by the General Medical Council has been delayed to canvass views of "other groups." The Board of Deputies of British Jews has established a communal working party on circumcision, which held its inaugural meeting to decide whether to make representations to the GMC Dr. John Warren, founder of the anti-cincumcision organization, Norm UK, has written to GMC claiming that religious circumcision exposed a child to "an unnecessary risk of surgical complications." Murder Continued from prev. page that the congregation "reacted with shock and disbelief, but by and large there has been a real coming together around this issue." He added that "you're supposed to come here and be safe from the problems of the world, not faced with violence."

Total is $3.5 M. Sotheby’s Israel auction topped by $112,500 price

TEL AVIV — In Sotheby's Tel Aviv auctions, which totalled over $3.5 million, a burst of applause greeted the sale of Reuven Rubin's striking oil, "Storm in the Negev" when it sold April 11, at $112,500, more than seven times its low estimate. It achieved an auction record for a work in this genre by this most celebrated of Israeli painters. The auction of 19th and 20th century paintings, drawings and sculpture proved the consistent strength of the market for such modem Israeli artists. Another auction record, for a carved sculpture by an Israeli artist, was set with the acquisition of Itzhak Danziger's stone "Head" of 1935 for $129,000, at more than double its low estimate. Danziger is regarded as Israel's leading sculptor. An expressionist depiction of an "Arab Cafe in Majdal" by Marcel Janco brought one of the highest prices ever recorded for the artist, $60,000. Another auction world first was achieved when a painting by an Arab-Israeli artist was offered in this sale. The work, by Asim Abu Shakra (1961-1990), an oil on paper entitled "Cactus," depicts the "sabra" cactus plant native to the landscape. In his paintings the theme takes on a persona symbolism as well. This work, painted in 1988 and exhibited in the Tel Aviv Museum retrospective in 1994, just four years after Abu Shakra's early demise from cancer at the age of 29, fetched $27,600 against its estimate of $15/20,000. In the sale of important Judaica held on April 12, works of the 18th and 19th century, which appear with increasing rarity at sale, drew high prices. An oil of circa 1720, the "Curiel Family at Passover" by the celebrated French illustrator Bernard Picart sold for $256,000 while the exceptionally rare Dutch school oil, "Interior of the Ashkenazi Synagogue in Amsterdam with Upraising of the Continued on page 7

Oil in Israel?

Continued from page NAT i backed the soldiers who fired the three roundsof shells that killed 102 people at Qana," he wrote. He then took out after the Israeli public. "With the election not far off, neither the peace movements, nor the human rights activists, nor the left-of-center press rocked the boat and presented the military-political complex with harsh questions that needed to be asked. What would have been unthinkable during the years the peace elite was in the opposition now occurred without a murmur of protest." v Continuing in the same vein, he concluded, "So now Qana is part of our biography. Precisely because we have tried to deny and ignore the outrage, it remains affixed to us. And just as the Baruch Goldstein massacre of praying Muslims in Hebron and the murder of Yitzhak Rabin were extreme manifestations of some rotten seed planted in the religious-nationalistic culture, it now seems that the massacre at Qana was an extreme manifestation of rotten seed dormant in our secular Israeli culture: Cynicism. Arrogance. Egocentrism of the strong. A penchant to blur the distinction between good and bad, the allowed and the forbidden. A tendency not to demand justice, not to be adamant about the truth.".