Urgent calls by Jewish Labor and Zionist leaders for concentrated and unified efforts aimed at the preservation of the Jewish identity of the overwhelming majority of native-born Jews in this country, coupled with a re-affirmation of the need of a strong Zionist movement to achieve this goal and as a safeguard to meet the peril facing Israel, highlighted the opening session tonight of the Golden Jubilee Convention of the Farband-Labor Zionist Order, at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria here. Some 2,000 delegates and guests from all parts of the United States and Canada, representing a membership of 100,000, attended the session.
The principal speakers tonight were Israel Ambassador Avraham Harman; Meyer L. Brown, president of Farband; and Dr. Emanuel Neumann, chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency. Addresses of greetings were delivered by Hy Faine, chairman of the Central Committee of the Labor Zionist Organization of America-Poale Zion; Mrs. Blanche Fine, president of Pioneer Women; Aaron Shoiref in behalf of Habonim Youth organization; and Steven Block and Phylis Levin, on behalf of schools established by Farband.
Preceding the opening of the program, a memorial was held for three departed leaders: the late President John F. Kennedy; Herbert H. Lehman; and Rabbi Abba Hillet Silver of Cleveland. The triple eulogy was delivered by Jacob Katzman, associate general secretary of Farband. Taped greetings were broadcast in the auditorium from Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and from David Ben-Gurion, and a message written by Mr. Kennedy prior to his death was read. The session was officially opened by Benjamin Teller, secretary of Farband’s New York City Committee.
BROWN URGES ATTENTION TO NATIVE-BORN; HITS SOVIET PERSECUTIONS
In his presidential address, Mr. Brown, founder of the 50-year old Jewish fraternal and social organization, asserted that, with 82 per cent of the 5,500,000 Jews residing in the United States and Canada consisting of generations born in these countries, a program aimed at the preservation of the Jewish identity by these elements, and of their link with fellow-Jews in other lands, particularly in the State of Israel, “is for us the most urgent and vital need today.” He warned of increasing assimilationist trends in the American Jewish community reflected in the “alarming growth of intermarriages and a drifting away from Judaism, particularly on the part of Jewish youth.”
At the same time, he emphasized that, as an American-oriented organization, Farband is deeply concerned with the struggle for civil rights of all citizens, irrespective of color and creed and safeguarding the rights of Labor.
Mr. Brown lauded President Lyndon B. Johnson who, he said, “has in the first month of his office, demonstrated that he is resolved to follow loyally the late President Kennedy’s progressive policies and social ideals, the securing of civil rights for millions of our Negro brethren, and the abolition of all discriminations prevalent in this country. We, as Jews, know the bitter taste of discrimination and we heartily support the Negroes in their just struggle for equality,” he said.
The Earband president voiced concern at the deteriorating position of the Jews in Soviet Russia. He urged “unrelaxed efforts to prevail upon the Soviet Government to halt the liquidation of the last remnants of Jewish religious life” and that “the Jewish population there be granted the possibility to conduct their cultural and religious activities as well as the right to emigrate in order to reunite with their families in other lands.”
He also urged the establishment by Farband of an information bureau in Israel to acquaint Israelis with details about life in the American Jewish community. In another section of his address, he called upon the United Nations to proclaim an international day of mourning for all victims of Nazism, including the 6,000,000 Jews murdered by the Hiller regime.
NEUMANN CONFIDENT THAT U.S.A., UNDER JOHNSON, IS FRIENDLY TO ISRAEL
Dr. Neumann told the gathering that, “historically, Zionism has been and continues to be a fructifying and powerful force in American Jewish life.” He further maintained that “without it, we would be infinitely poorer, infinitely weaker and less resistant to the corrosive influence of assimilation and disintegration.” “The Jewish community owes much more to Zionism than Zionism owes to it,” he emphasized.
Asserting that “Israel is still threatened by hostile forces,” Dr. Neumann said that “Israel still looks to this, our country, for sympathetic understanding and support. Fortunately,” he continued, “we have reason to be confident that we can count upon the sympathetic understanding and warm interest of President Johnson as we could upon his predecessor, the late, lamented President Kennedy. We have every reason to hope that America will not let Israel down, that the United States will not stand idly by if Israel were ever subject to aggression and attack.
The Zionist leader further stressed the continuing need for “alertness on the part of American Zionists and all friends of Israel, Jews and Christians alike, particularly in the face of the renewed and repeated threats and saber-rattling on the part of Arab rulers.”
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.
