Rabbi Bernard Bergman, honorary president of the Religious Zionists of America, urged the Israel government to legislate new laws curbing missionary activity. Opening the 63rd RZA convention ########## Wednesday night he say the RZA #### this cancerous pague which has #### the state.” Earlier ### has dug its claws into the very heart of Jerusalem,” a reference apparently to the Hebrew Union College Branch in the capital. Reform, said Rabbi Bergman, was the path from Judaism to Christianity and there was only a thin dividing line between Reform and Conservative. He warned that the latter movement, too, was increasing its foothold in the Holy Land.In this connection Rabbi Bergman assailed the present Law of Return which does not differentiate between Reform conversion and Orthodox conversion. He urged the Israeli National Religious Party to demand in negotiations for the next coalition that the law be amended to accept Orthodox conversions only. Finally, he called for unity in the religious camp, suggesting an alignment of all the Orthodox parties.
URGES RELIGIOUS GUIDES IN ABSORPTION CENTERS
Rabbi Bergman called upon the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency “to provide religious guides and counsellors to every absorption center.” He said that to date there were no more than three in all the absorption centers throughout the country. He also asked that religious centers specifically suited to the needs of young Russians and that adult education centers for the young be immediately established to permit easy access on the part of the immigrants to these centers.
“We must recognize that the immigration of Russian Jews differs completely from that of the previous post war immigrants,”Rabbi Bergman said.”Russian Jews do not come to Israel because of economic deprivation or physical danger. They come to seek Jewish identity. religious expression and cultural freedom. If we fail to provide these for them in Israel we shall have betrayed their heroic rebellion against. Russian spiritual oppression, the rebellion for which they gambled with their very lives.”
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.
