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Representatives of 3 Religions Meet to Discuss Tolerance

November 14, 1929
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The last of a series of round table discussions having for their object the mitigation of the age-old problems of religious in tolerance will be concluded today at Harvard University by about 500 laymen and clergymen representing Jewish, Catholic and Protestant denominations. The discussions have been held under the auspices of the Calvert Round Table of Boston, comprised of 100 adherents of the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant faiths who would promote an understanding and the eradication of religious animosities between the various religious groups.

At one of the earlier discussions Rabbi Harry Levi of Temple Israel, Brooklyn, said that the day which saw members of the three main religious groups meeting to discuss such a problem had taken so long to materialize that the occasion was one for humiliation rather than jubilation.

President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, one of the three speakers at the opening session, sounded the keynote of the entire series when he said: “Does loyalty to a nation or a church imply ill will to a rival? If that trait cannot be changed, our civilization can not progress to a better stage. If this is true that loyalty must be accompanied by hostility to those trying to get on in the same way, then man moves in a dismal circle. What is needed is to arouse religious fervor without religious rancor, religious sympathy, not religious antagonism.

One of the features of the discussion was an extremely frank discussion of the topics of “Misrepresentations of Religious Beliefs and Practices” and “Community Conflict and Cooperation” in which 490 representatives of the three religions participated.

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