Twelve Jewish civil rights specialists left here today for Bonn, Germany, on an exchange mission concerned with problems of democracy. The group, representing the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, will work with German civic officials, youth and community leaders, at the invitation of the Federal Republic, in an effort to explore how American experience in combating bigotry can be applied to the German scene.
The exchange is sponsored Jointly by the Boon Government and the ADL.To obtain personal understanding of postwar problems in Germany, the League group will live with German families in the cities they visit. Headed by Benjamin R.Epstein, ADL national director, the group includes educators, lawyers, social scientists and public affairs specialists. The program is a continuation of an exchange inaugurated in 1960,after a visit to Germany by Mr. Epstein and Nathan C. Belth, an ADL executive, to study the causes of swastika smearings which had broken out in Cologne and spread to the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Mr. Epstein said that, after conferences with Bonn officials, the League representatives–including men who were refugees from Hitler’s Germany–will divide into teams and live with communal workers in Hamburg, Muenster, Bad Hamm, Beuel, Michel-stadt, Stuttgart, Berlin and Frankfurt while examining German institutions and current attitudes. The group will convene with West Berlin civic leaders before returning home.
In addition to Mr.Epstein,the group included Mr.Belth, Herman Edelsberg, Kurt Bachrach-Baker,Harold Braverman, Monroe Sheinberg, Morton J.Sobel, Nissen Gross, Hans Adler, Nathan Perlmutter,Seymour Gorchoff and Mrs.Ethel S.Epstein.
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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.