Ajcongress Hits Endorsements

The president of the American Jewish Congress urged American Jewish leaders today to refrain from both endorsements and attacks in the presidential election campaign, warning such actions would not be helpful and might be harmful to both American Jews and Israel.

Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg said that, as president of the AJCongress, he would not support cither candidate for President publicly, though he has his own political opinions. He said the AJCongress “has examined the record and the positions of both major political parties on Israel and Soviet Jewry” and that “we are gratified that the record of both the Democratic and Republican Presidents and parties shows no real division on these issues.” He said Israel had had bipartisan support in the US since its birth and that “the record of both parties and their positions taken to date, reflect the overwhelming support in the general American public for a safe and secure Israel, for peace in the Middle East and for freedom for Soviet Jewry.”

Citing “recent declarations of some American Jewish leaders in support of one candidate for the Presidency against the other,” Rabbi Hertzberg said “if those who support a particular candidate for the Presidency were ordinary citizens, no one would give undue weight to their words. However, since they are members of the Jewish ‘establishment,’ who are using their offices to declare that one candidate is better for Jewish interests than another, there will be harmful consequences to such acts and they may even be costly to the Jewish position.”

He declared that “every American Jew goes to the election as an individual. It is therefore the obligation of Jewish leadership, given the bipartisan nature of American support for Israel and Soviet Jewry, to insist on this individual character of Jewish voters in this election and to remain publicly neutral in the campaign.” He said he intended to follow that procedure “and I urge my colleagues in similar positions to do so as well.”