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Friday November 20, 1998

World Report

BERN (JTA) -- A Swiss fund created to help needy Holocaust survivors last week distributed payments of $400 each to 102 Jews in Belarus.

In the coming weeks, another 223 survivors in the former Soviet Union are expected to receive the one-time payment from the $170 million Holocaust Memorial Fund, created last year by Switzerland's leading banks.

It will take about two more years for all of the money to be distributed, according to the fund's head. Rolf Bloch, who also leads the Swiss Jewish community, added that the process has been complicated because some people are filing false claims.

Czech leader appeals to American Jews

PRAGUE (JTA) -- Czech President Vaclav Havel appealed to a group of young Jewish leaders this week to continue reaching out to his nation's Jews.

Havel met with the heads of UJA Federations of North America's Young Leadership Division, who stopped in Prague before traveling to Israel.

About 1,300 people are official members of the Prague Jewish community.

While in Prague, the federation group delivered a Torah to Beit Praha, the only synagogue in Prague that holds egalitarian services.

Germany mourns its Jewish soldiers

BERLIN (JTA) -- A German army official laid a wreath this week at the graves of Jewish soldiers killed in World War I, as part of a nationwide day of commemoration for soldiers killed in action.

Wreaths were also laid at the non-military Jewish cemetery in Berlin. Meanwhile, police arrested 16 neo-Nazis between the ages of 15 and 24 who waved Nazi flags and disrupted commemoration ceremonies at a cemetery in the eastern German town of Jena.

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