Special Interview the Threat from Within

The major challenge facing the Jewish people today is to unite its ranks, a prominent Jewish leader asserted.

“The Jewish community today is torn by strife,” Seymour Reich, the new president of B’nai B’rith International (BBI), observed in an interview here. “There is controversy and there are incidents in Israel and in Jewish communities elsewhere,” he said, mentioning issues such as “Who is a Jew,” “get” (religious divorce), intermarriage and assimilation.

The president of the largest Jewish organization in the world, consisting of 500,000 men, women, college students and teenagers, believes that the Jewish people must strengthen its unity in order to deal effectively with the dwindling Jewish population in the world, particularly in the United States.

“We are concerned. The Jewish population is dwindling due to intermarriage and assimilation. The major danger to the Jewish community today is from within. We have been losing our youth. American Jews constitute now only 2.6 percent of the general population, while in the past we constituted three percent of the population,” he said.

On a recent visit to Israel, Reich called on the Jewish State to create “a body made up of representatives of all Jewish religious groups, in Israel and throughout the world, whose purpose would be to foster a healthier climate among Jews.” Furthermore, Reich, who is a lawyer by profession, called on the Knesset to strengthen criminal sanctions against unlawful acts preformed against the background of religious intolerance. “Individuals inclined toward that kind of violence must understand the harsh consequences that will result from them,” he said.

LEGITIMACY OF DIFFERENCES

The 53-year old leader said that his organization recognizes the legitimacy of different interpretations and outlooks of Judaism and Jewish identity. “We will encourage members of every group in Israeli society that believes in dignified co-existence,” he stated. BBI, he said, makes itself available to all Jews–Conservative, Orthodox or Reform. “We offer ourselves as a vehicle to accommodate the different views in the Jewish community and to serve as a meeting ground,” Reich said.

Asked to list the other priorities on the agenda of the BBI, Reich, who spends two days a week at the organization’s headquarters in Washington and the rest of the time in New York where he is a senior partner in the law firm of Dreyer and Traub, started with the plight of Soviet Jewry.

SOVIET JEWRY ISSUE

“We are campaigning very hard on behalf of Soviet Jews,” he said. “We are trying to focus world attention on the Soviet Union’s inhuman treatment of its Jewish citizens.” He said that the highlight of BBI campaign for Soviet Jews will culminate between noon and 2 p.m. on February 26, when B’nai B’rith will stage rallies in 43 cities across the nation during which well known personalities will read the names of 12,000 Soviet refuseniks at city halls, state capitals, and college campuses. The rallies, he noted, will be coordinated jointly by BBI and B’nai B’rith Women, in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, B’nai B’rith Hillel and the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization.

Another issue of priority with BBI is the State of Israel. “We are continuously alert and concerned on the need to educate the American public and Congress of Israel’s strategic partnership with the United States,” he said, adding that efforts are also made from time to time to correct the image of Israel in the media when the media “misunderstands certain action of Israel.”

ISRAEL IS NOT BEING SCAPEGOATED

In Reich’s view, the American people “have not scapegoated Israel” in the Iran arms sales affair. He noted, however, that some American officials made some statements “in an attempt to blame Israel,” but their attempts failed. “When the Iran arms sales scandal broke out I was in Israel, where I met with Premier Yitzhak Shamir, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin. All three told me that Israel did not have prior knowledge or involvement in the diversion of funds from the arms sale to Iran to the Contras,” he stressed.

Reich said that he and other BBI leaders have a direct access not only to the Administration in Washington, but to government officials in other countries around the world.

He said that American Jews thrive in America, because “Jews thrive best in democracy.” He observed that anti-Semitism is no longer a major threat to American Jews. “Anti-Semitism is no longer respectable here,” he pointed out, noting that anti-Semitism today is associated with extreme right-wing groups such as the KKK or the Posse Comitatus, whom he described as “fringe elements on the far right who have embarked on a mission of hatred against Jews.”