Zionist Council, Orthodox Rabbis Hit Anti-israel Demonstration

The American Zionist Council, spokesman for all Zionist parties in the United States, and the Rabbinical Council of America, representing 550 Orthodox rabbis in this country, today blasted as “irresponsible” and “misled” the demonstration last Monday before the Israel Consulate in New York by several thousand Jews in protest against the drafting of Orthodox women in Israel for national non-military duty.

(In Tel Aviv, Davar, organ of the Histadrut, the Israel labor organization, called on responsible American Jewish religious leaders today to condemn the demonstration in New York against the Israel national service act. The paper said that the demonstrators had brought harm to religious Jewry in the United States.)

The Zionist Council statement charged that the demonstration was “instigated by a tiny segment of irresponsible individuals who distort religious sentiment for questionable political purposes.” The Council also expressed the belief that the great majority of American Jews will continue to sympathize with the “legitimate and necessary steps” taken by the Israel Government to safeguard national security and the lives and liberty of its people. Finally, it stated its belief that “public demonstrations in the streets of New York on matters which touch on the internal security of Israel are out of place and offensive to all American Jews.”

The Rabbinical Council, at an emergency session today of its Israel Commission, authorized its president, Rabbi Theodore L. Adams, to state that the organization “completely disassociates itself from the shameful, degrading and violent demonstration” in front of the consulate. “We particularly regret that the people demonstrated under an ‘Orthodox’ banner.

“They do not represent Orthodox Judaism,” the statement continued, “and as Orthodox rabbis, we condemn such action as contrary to our basic religious teachings and repugnant to the spirit of Torah. We consider the individuals who participated in this demonstration to be totally misguided and the sponsoring organization to be irresponsible and misled.”