An appeal for action to bring about direct peace talks between Israel and the Arab countries, and a warning to the United Nations against trying to force upon the parties concerned a formula for such talks, was approved last night by 3,000 delegates at the biennial convention here of the United Synagogue of America.
Henry N. Rapaport, of Scarsdale, N.Y., who was elected at the closing session today to a second two-year term as president, told the resolutions session that there should be no consideration of Israeli withdrawal from any of the occupied Arab territories until “direct deliberations” were in effect between the Arab and Israeli leaders.
In another resolution, the delegates, representing Conservative congregations throughout the United States and Canada, urged that Jews and other men of goodwill join in efforts “to dramatize and demonstrate” their concern for the fate of Soviet Jewry, “until our brethren in the Soviet Union receive their full cultural and religious rights.”
In other resolutions, the delegates said that the need for dialogue between Jews and Christians “has become especially apparent as a result of the recent Arab-Israeli conflict and the misunderstanding among Christians “with respect to the Israeli position on Jerusalem”; voiced “distress” over the fact that some congregations confine Jewish education for children to one-day-a-week schools; and urged affiliated congregations to improve salaries and working conditions for qualified Jewish teachers.
Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf, director of the Islamic Center of New York, participating in an unprecedented Moslem-Jewish dialogue at the convention today, asserted that Moslems “fully sympathized” with Jewish sufferings, and expressed the hope that his Jewish audience “will sympathize with ours.” Both he and the other participant, Rabbi Henry Siegman, executive vice-president of the Synagogue Council of America, stressed the common elements of the two faiths.
The Jewish and Moslem leader appeared at one of the closing sessions of the convention on the understanding that neither would refer to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Dr. Rauf remarked that Moslems were not responsible for the “bitter experiences and suffering” of Jews through the ages. He appealed to the Conservative Jewish leaders “to extend your sympathy to all those who suffer.”
The delegates were warned by two rabbis that Jewish youngsters were deserting traditional Jewish life to join the ranks of hippies and other youthful protest movements. The speakers said that the rebelling Jewish youth believe that parents are dishonest and fail to communicate with their children and that the synagogue is totally divorced from the real problems of their lives.
Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Oakland, Calif., estimated that 20 to 25 percent of the hippies in the nearby Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco, were Jewish. Other speakers said that the figure might be nearer 50 percent and that not only members but leaders in the protest movements were Jewish. Rabbi Saul Teplitz of Woodmere, N.Y. criticized “innocuous activities” of synagogues which repel Jewish youth.
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.
