The Rabbinical Council of America, representing Orthodox rabbis in this country, today concluded its three-day conference here with a resolution calling upon various state legislatures “to rectify a grave injustice to Sabbath observing Jews who at present are “subject to stringent Blue Sunday laws and not permitted to engage in earning a living on Sunday even though they refrain from labor on Saturday.”
Declaring that such a conditionals unfair to and not In keeping with basic American concepts, the resolution called particular attention to this condition in New York when has the largest Jewish population of any city in the world. The resolution appealed to Mayor Wagner of New York to introduce legislation in the New York City Council to ameliorate this discriminatory practice.
The conference urged the Soviet Government to grant complete religious freedom to its Jews and to permit them to carry on their cultural life without fear or restraint. The conference also urged the Soviet Government to allow free emigration to Israel of those Jews who desire to leave.
The Rabbinical Council also adopted a resolution urging the President of the United States and the Secretary of State to issue a declaration that the United States will not tolerate any military or economic aggression against any sovereign state in the Middle East.
The conference appealed to the United States Government to discontinue supplying armaments to the Arab states of the Middle East. Only economic assistance will bring about peace, high standards of living and neighborly cooperation, it was emphasized in a resolution.
The conference called upon the American Jewish community to participate in a mass religious pilgrimage to tie State of Israel during the 10th anniversary celebration in 1958. “We urge each rabbi to secure a minimum of 10 congregants to join him in traveling to Israel in 1958,” the resolution said. “We salute the State of Israel for its stupendous achievements during its first ten years, and consider it a beacon of human freedom in the feudal Middle East.”
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.
