The American Jewish Committee proposed a “massive campaign” today to increase citizen participation in the electoral process with the specific goal of 100 million voters in the 1976 presidential elections. Its recommendations included the extension of voting rights to 18-year-olds. The plan, described as an appropriate way of marking the 200th anniversary of American independence was unveiled at a two-day meeting of the AJ Committee board of Governors here. It was presented by AJ Committee president Philip E. Hoffman to Leonard Garment, special White House assistant, for submission to President Nixon. The campaign aims to increase the number of persons involved in both the electoral and political processes, to upgrade the quality of voter participation and to broaden and strengthen the enforcement of laws relating to voting.
An American Jewish Committee report submitted to the board of governors concluded that’ “What has emerged in early 1970 is a clear recognition by Christian editors that Israel is no myth and really exists.” The report quotes the Rev. John Sheerin, editor of the Catholic World, that Israel’s existence “is every bit as valid as that of numerous other states whose legality is never questioned.” The Rev. Alan Geyer, editor of The Christian Century, a Protestant journal, is quoted that Israel’s right to sovereignty and her citizens’ human rights “are powerful and legitimate claims upon a religiously grounded sense of justice.”
Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, national interreligious affairs director of the AJ Committee, said that the survey indicated that the earlier “critical” view by Catholics and Protestants of Israel has turned to “a more sympathetic and even-handed understanding.” (According to the Gallup poll recently released, more Americans were taking a neutral position toward the Mideast dispute since the Six-Day War and that support for Israel has dropped although it still is higher than support for the Arabs.) The AJ Committee report found that Christian editors believed Arab attempts to disparage Israeli territorial claims were “distressing” and “the basis for a systematic reign of terror unleashed on Jews stranded in Arab lands.” The editors were also found to have learned, following a visit by some of them to Arab refugee camps, that “our image of (them) was wrong.” The Israeli-run camps, they found, “are not the fenced-in concentration camps we had pictured.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
