Kesher Talk

When Arnold Schwarzenegger came under fire during the California recall campaign for past remarks praising Adolf Hitler's speaking skills and former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim, his staunchest defender was the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Schwarzenegger appeared to return the favor last week when he announced the formation of his 68-member transition team. The governor-elect tapped Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles-based center, making him the team's only rabbi.

... There were three issues of specifically Jewish concern that he said he would be bringing up with the transition team: retaining a Jewish liaison to the governor, continuing the commitments made by the two previous governors — Pete Wilson and Gray Davis — to California-Israel trade and continuing the current governor's advisory group on Nazi-era insurance issues.

Beyond that, Cooper said he and the center's dean, Rabbi Marvin Hier, would be working to bring Schwarzenegger to Israel next year. He has been to Israel twice before: in July 1995 to open a Planet Hollywood restaurant in Tel Aviv and in 1978, when he was a lesser-known star of the body-building world.

"We'll do our best from our end to see to it that as soon as he can come up for air, sometime in the first half of 2004, we'll try to get him over here," he said.

(The Forward)

posted by William @ 10/21/2003 08:56:34 AM