The 51st annual conference of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, approving the report of its Social Justice Commission, today warned that current anti-alien legislation was “in effect a capitulation to totalitarianism.”
The report, submitted for the commission by Chairman Edward L. Israel, Baltimore, said that anti-alien measures were “unjust to the overwhelming majority of loyal aliens as well as destructive of the fundamental texture of true democracy.”
“We hereby record our faith in the loyalty of those who have come to this country either recently or in the past,” the report declared. “We urge them to become full-fledged citizens of this land and urge that in the commendable effort to protect democratic institutions there be no legislation passed which will imperil the liberties of aliens as a group.”
The report also approved the American Civil Liberties Union action for peace between the C.I.O. and A.F. of L., the findings of the Inter-Faith Conference on Unemployment in Washington on June 6, asked abolition of the poll tax in southern states, Government aid for the sharecroppers and retention of the fundamental principles of the National Labor Relations Act.
“There will never be enduring justice and sound civilization until men recognize and respect that dignity of the individual which is inherent in our Jewish spiritual concept of God’s fatherhood and man’s brotherhood; whatever specific applications we may make in the realm of social and economic life flow from this concept,” the report added.
At a session tonight on “The Spirit and Character of the American Jewish Community,” Rabbi B. Benedict Glazer, New York, said: “The full force of Hitler’s savage onslaughts on the Jew is not completely dissipated in Europe. The poison of his international propaganda machine has seeped into many areas of the depression-prepared soil of the United States.”
He pointed to what he called over-concentration of the American Jewish community on self defense and said: “It is questionable whether activities in the field of Christian-Jewish relations have influenced a major segment of the population, particularly the masses of victims of unemployment and depression and susceptible to the anti-Jewish blandishments of a demagogue.”
Rabbi Glazer predicted that ultimately many external differences among the three major Jewish religious groups in the United States would disappear.
Speakers at a symposium this afternoon on “Problems of the Rabbinate” stressed that the war had greatly affected their functions. B. Feibelman, New Orleans, said that “civilization itself may not survive the war.” Abraham Shusterman, Tulsa, declared: “No problem confronting the rabbi can compare with that of good and evil to which a war-torn world has given new significance.”
Solomon N. Bazell, Louisville, declared that “freedom and democracy are sacred terms in these times” and called for a code of Reform Jewish conduct and practice. Other speakers included David H. Wice, Omaha, and Samuel Wolk, Wilkes Barre.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
