American Jewish Committee Discusses Jewish Continuity Problem

A look into the future of Jewishness in the United States in the “next decade or two” was offered here today at the opening session of the 60th annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee attended by Jewish leaders from all parts of the country.

Dr. John Slawson, executive vice-president of the organization, addressing the opening session, analyzed the problem of Jewish continuity and suggested that the American Jewish Committee should now begin to go beyond cliches such as “ensuring the survival of Judaism,” “perpetuating the Jewish tradition,” or the “mystique of Judaism.”

“What is it we wish to have survive, and how do we wish to have it survive? These are the important questions before us to which we must address ourselves, otherwise we shall continue to walk a treadmill,” Dr. Slawson said.” It is obvious that we have to begin to evolve a viable theory of Jewish life in a democracy — viability of Jewish life in this rapidly developing technological society. It is important that we think of Jewish life in terms of the meritocracy that is developing, and the elite that will dominate it. It is paramount that we take into consideration the intellectual explosion that is taking place and the extent to which our people, particularly our young, need to have a satisfying intellectual experience in order to be Jewishly committed as well, of course, be the recipients of moral and spiritual enrichment.”

DR. SLAWSON STRESSES THE SPIRITUALLY ENRICHING QUALITY OF JUDAISM

Pointing out that “Jewish continuity is not just the matter of preservation of a heritage which can only be a means to an end, but not itself the goal,” Dr. Slawson said: “The question of relevance to modern needs comes up and here we get into the functional factor which calls for the degree to which Judaism addresses itself to the comprehension and solution of the moral and ethical issues of the day.

“We are convinced that Judaism possesses a spiritually enriching quality but its potential has not been adequately mined. Its true meaning as a universal force in contrast to the stereotypy of its being confined to a parochial role is not adequately comprehended by Jews. Its true commitment to an attitude of love and human compassion in contrast to the stereotypy that it is a religion primarily of law and authoritarianism is not really properly understood. Its anti-idolatry attribute and its commitment solely to spiritual values has not been fully comprehended. The emphasis of the ethical over all other values, even the esthetic, has not been adequately appreciated.

“The current younger generation of Jews has no scars, visible or invisible of persecution or discrimination, and the Jewish experience, as such, has little or no direct meaning for them,” Dr. Slawson continued. “I maintain that things that live in the modern world must have relevance and meaning in the modern world. Judaism has an important contribution to make, we know, but in an increasingly technological society the more emotional Jewish identification is not enough. It will not last. There must also be a rational and intellectual comprehension of the significance of Judaism.

SPEAKS OF JEWISH IGNORANCE OF JUDAISM; URGES ‘TASK FORCE’

“Our young people may know the history of Greece, for example, and in fact the history of almost all other ancient cultures but remain profoundly ignorant in the history of their own religious culture and tradition. From a practical point of view we find ourselves in the situation that when promoting the Christian-Jewish dialogue, Jews remain distressingly silent because of their ignorance of Judaism,” Dr. Slawson emphasized.

The American Jewish Committee Leader urged the establishment of a special “task force” to work the area of helping make Judaism relevant to the current issues of the day and “functionally meaningful in our contemporary society.” The functions of such a “task force,” he said, should be “to make Judaism comprehended as a religion, as a tradition, and as a creativity.”

“What is needed today,” Dr. Slawson declared, “is the development of something akin to Maimonides’ Guide To The Perplexed; something that will make membership in the Jewish community — and incidentally, in the American Jewish Committee, meaningful and important; something that will set down quite specifically what we mean when we speak of Judaism as an ethical and moral system and the importance of this system in the increasingly materialistic society in which we live.”

Jewish schools, Dr. Slawson said, need to emphasize and clarify the role of the Jewish people living among the various nations today and communicate the relationship of Judaism to other religions of the world — as of now. He expressed the conviction that it is important that we pay adequate attention not alone to the religious aspect of Jewish group identification but to secular ones as well — literature, art, music, and other cultural activities. In this manner we may perhaps again bring back the Jewish intellectual into our midst,” the AJC leader stated. “We should keep in mind that a Jewish individual can no longer rely on the non-Jew to tell him what he is. He must decide and affirm this fact for himself, otherwise that which he may be told may not make him happy. We must transfer being Jewish from a style of life into a way of life and this represents a much deeper level of functioning.”

Dr. Slawson warned that if the present trend continues in American Jewish life, “Jews will continue to decline in visibility in the United States and the world over,” He also stressed that it is anticipated that the Jews in this country will decline in number because of increase in intermarriage, decrease in fertility, and alienation from the Jewish group. Nevertheless, he predicted that a decade from now the American Jewish Committee may have 100,000 members as compared with its 40,000 membership now.

ABRAM SPEAKS ON DISCRIMINATION; GOLDBERG BACKS GENOCIDE PACT

Morris B. Abram, president of the American Jewish Committee, referring to the problem of discrimination in the U.S., said that the time had come “to focus on the goals beyond the law, upon the causes of prejudice and the means of changing the hearts and minds of men.” Mr. Abram is U.S. representative on the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

While acknowledging that the role of legislation was not yet exhausted, Mr. Abram stated that it had its limitations, and that “we may be approaching them at the national level. The end of the problem of discrimination is not in sight. We know too that neither legislation nor its strict and effective enforcement will eliminate color or religious prejudice and discrimination and fulfill the rights of all Americans.”

Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg, American delegate to the United Nations, addressing the evening session, called for ratification of all human rights treaties now before the United States Senate, including the U.N. convention on genocide, adoption of which Jewish groups have sought for many years. The genocide convention was first submitted to the Senate by President Harry S. Truman in 1949 but no action has yet been taken.

Mr. Goldberg voiced hope that the newest U.N. convention on racial discrimination, adopted by the General Assembly last year, would also be submitted to the Senate. He stressed that the genocide convention and the other treaties were consistent with the American domestic legal structure and should be adopted.

Jacob Blaustein, honorary president of the American Jewish Committee and senior vice-president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which negotiated the reparations agreements with the West German Government in behalf of the surviving victims of Nazi persecution, reported that “ultimately by the time all the provisions are implemented, the Germans will have paid approximately a collective $10,000,000,000 to Israel, to reimburse it for the resettlement of the surviving victims who went there, and to the Claims Conference for the rehabilitation of the persecutees residing elsewhere; and to the individual claimants.”