Chief Justice Earl Warren praised the B’nai B’rith Organization last night as representative of the American longing for “comradeship that comes from associating ourselves together in humanitarian causes.” The Chief Justice spoke before more than 750 guests at a dinner celebrating the ground-breaking of the new B’nai B’rith building in Washington.
Chief Justice Warren envisaged the B’nai B’rith building as a “source of inspiration for all Americans, a center of knowledge and culture.” The building, he said, “can serve to illuminate the entire record of three centuries of American achievement in helping men to live together in peace and unity.
“American patriotism requires political allegiance but not uniformity in faith, in culture or in sentiment, ” the Chief Justice asserted. “Unity does not involve uniformity. ” Different religions, he added, “far from setting up conflicting loyalties…aid richness, and color and vitality to there fabric of our national life.”
Praising those who fight for American liberties against onslaught from abroad and at home, the Chief Justice declared; “We need men and women, whose minds are free, men and women who can write and speak boldly the words that set forth the truth.”
A model of the million-dollar, eight-story building to be erected by the B’nai B’rith Henry Monsky Foundation was unveiled at the dinner. The structure will house manuscripts, historical documents, paintings, sculpture, and a Four Freedoms Memorial Library sponsored by the B’nai B’rith Women.
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.
