AJC Replies to Critics of Its Policies

In a long communication authorized by its administrative committee, the American Jewish Congress yesterday replied to the refusal of the Jewish Labor Committee to join its National Board of Elections, answered charges made by B. Charney Vladeck, chairman of the labor organization, and renewed its request for a conference to create a basis for cooperation “in the organized defense of Jewish rights against the attacks of anti-Semitism.”

The communication deals with the Labor Committee’s charges that the Congress has not justified its existence; that there is no assurance that the elections scheduled for April 28, 1935, will not be “manipulated” and that the Congress’ fight against Hitlerism has been limited to the Jewish question.

CONTINUATION OF STRUGGLE

It insists the proposed elections represent a continuation of the fifty-year-old struggle between those who view the Jewish problem in terms of elementary aid for Jews in distress, and those who see in Jewish life evidences of a common destiny and who believe in Jewish self-emancipation through democratic methods.

The communication denies that the purpose of the elections is to make it possible for one group to assume leadership, and declares:

“We look forward to seeing within the forms of an all-inclusive national Jewish organization, be its name ultimately American Jewish Congress or something else, representatives of Orthodox Jewry, of liberal Jewry, of that segment animated and inspired by socialistic ideals, as well as by that element which is animated and inspired by Zionist and national ideals.”

CITES EARLY STRUGGLES

In reply to the charge that the Congress has not justified its existence, the document cites “seventeen years of consistent and en-