Jewish Groups Ask Congress to Oppose Blank Day Device or Defer Calendar Reform

A letter has just been sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, signed by the Rev. Dr. Moses Hyamson, president, and Isaac Rosengarten, secretary, of the League for Safeguarding the Fixity of the Sabbath, representing practically all the national Jewish organizations in the country, including among them the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Independent Order B’rith Abraham, the Independent Order B’nai B’rith, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Zionist Organization of America, and all the rabbinical bodies of the various groups within Jewry.

The letter points out that the “blank day” device, to which the National Committee on Calendar Simplification has shown itself to be partial, will destroy the fixed periodicity of the Sabbath and that such reform is inconceivable to the Jew as well as to the Seventh Day Adventists, the Seventh Day Baptists, and all other Christians who attach religious sentiment to a fixed Sabbath on the Lord’s Day. The letter further asks, in view of the existence of other feasible 13 month calendar plans, which are not wedded to the “blank day” feature, and which serve practically all the purposes desired generally by proponents of calendar reform, that the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives oppose the “blank day” device or defer the passage of the resolution for the calling of a conference to simplify the existing calendar “until such time as the true sentiments of the people of the United States have been fairly and fully ascertained.”