A statement by 32 Hillel directors from across the country released here today by Rabbi Albert Axelrod of Brandeis University deplored “the activities of those Jewish spokesmen who are attempting to push the American Jewish community into the camp of President Richard Nixon.” The 32 signers stated they were “acting as individuals” and endorsed Democratic Party Presidential candidate Senator George McGovern.
Noting that Jewish youth have long been identified with civil rights and peace movements, for Israel and Soviet Jewry, and have expressed ongoing concern “for their fellow Americans who have been too long denied justice and equality,” the Hillel directors declared: “Today, they, and we, are under attack–not by the extreme leftists, and not by self-haters but by those Jewish organizational officials who announce that dedication to Israel and Jewish concerns dictates a vote in November for four more years of President Nixon.”
The statement warned that the endorsement by the Jewish “organizational officials” appears to be persuading “a growing number of young Jews that commitment to Israel and a commitment to peace and justice may, in fact, be mutually exclusive. Where the extreme left failed, the Jewish Nixonttes may well succeed.” The directors urged the American Jewish community “not to abandon its traditional social concern, not to abandon its duty to improve the world unto the Almighty, not to abandon its own youth.”
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