The emancipation of the Jews from ghetto life and their integration in free societies is creating a new danger for Jewish survival greater than that which threatened Jewish survival in previous centuries, Dr. Nahum Goldmann told the B’nai B’rith triennial convention here tonight.
His speech, in which he urged that the danger be fought through programs of Jewish unity, contrasted sharply with that delivered last night by Philip M. Klutznick, B’nai B’rith president, who rejected predictions of the doom of emancipated Jewish life outside of Israel.
Dr. Goldmann told the 1, 300 delegates that two great psychological experiences which had strengthened Jewish consciousness–the Nazi holocaust and the emergence of Israel–no longer existed as challenges for Jewish life. He urged programs of close cooperation of Jewish communities and between Israel and the rest of the world’s Jewries.
He listed as two other threats to Jewish unity the cold war, which he said had split Soviet Jews off the main stream of Jewish life, and “natural differences” between Jews of Israel and other Jewish communities. He said the fate of the Jews behind the Iran Curtain represented one of “our most tragic problems, “with “a danger of the loss of 3, 000, 000 more Jews to spiritual disintegration and complete loss of Jewish consciousness.”
The world Jewish leader said it was “one of the miracles of history and impressive proof of our stubborn will to survive that large parts of East European, and particularly Soviet Jewry, still maintain the will to be Jews. ” To fill the gap between Jews living a completely Jewish life in their own state and Jews living abroad as minorities, Dr. Goldmann proposed a “system of relationships which will create permanent ties and methods of mutual influence. “
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.
