World Notes: Jul. 29, 1985

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Under Norman's resourceful management, Zimbabwe has become one of the few African countries that not only feed themselves but produce surpluses that account for some 40% of export earnings. Norman had no ties to Smith's Conservative Alliance party, which won 15 of the 20 places reserved for whites in the 100-seat House of Assembly. Mugabe's party took 63 of the remaining seats. While praising Norman's performance, Mugabe said it had not been "appreciated by [the farmers] or they would not have voted for Ian Smith, who is an enemy of the people of Zimbabwe." Mugabe also dismissed John Landau, the white Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce. That left Minister of State for Public Service Chris Andersen the only white Minister among the 25 in Mugabe's Cabinet.

ISRAEL

Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews who made a dramatic exodus from their famine-ravaged villages to the promised land of Israel were on the march again last week. This time they were protesting a ruling by Israel's Chief Rabbis that Ethiopian Jews must be immersed in a mikveh, or ritual bath, to remove questions about their Jewishness. The Ethiopians, sometimes known as Falashas, have observed biblical Jewish traditions for centuries and are deeply hurt by the order. Said one elderly marcher: "Maybe it would have been better if we had stayed in Ethiopia. In spite of our suffering, at least there we knew who we were."

Although Israel officially acknowledges that the Ethiopians are Jews, its Chief Rabbis say that intermarriages during the centuries in which the Ethiopians were isolated from mainstream Judaism makes it difficult to determine the Jewishness of individuals. The Ethiopians say the rabbis' ruling is insulting because it casts doubt on the suffering they endured to sustain their identity. The Ethiopians' protest ended when Prime Minister Shimon Peres agreed to meet with them this week.

TURKEY

The Prophet Muhammad's exhortations concerning sex are occasionally mystifying. "When a man calls his wife to intercourse," the Messenger of God advises at one point, "she must not resist him even though she might be on a camel." He also warns that too much conversation while engaging in sex might turn his followers into stutterers. Fearful that modern Muslims may have lost their founder's enthusiasm for sex, Imam Ali Riza Demircan, 39, the religious leader of Istanbul's Grand Piyale Pasha mosque, published an explicit two-volume Sexual Life According to Islam. Declares the book: "The women who deserve to go to heaven are those who say that they will not go to sleep until they satisfy their husbands."

The marriage manual quickly became a Turkish best seller. Authorities, however, banned the book, removed Ali Demircan from his mosque and charged him with defaming Islam and, more serious, misusing religion, which could lead to a 15-year jail term. The author's most serious offense, it is alleged, was suggesting a return to traditions outlawed by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. As one example, the imam advocated redividing the home into a salamlik for men only and a harem for women.