American Jewish Committee Parley Opens; Will Discuss Bombings

Problems of violence in both the Nath and the South, anti-Semitic currents in the South, challenges in the Middle East and aspects of Jewish integration in the United States will be discussed at a national executive board meeting of the American Jewish Committee which opened here tonight. Five hundred delegates from all parts of the country will attend.

Delegates will hear a comprehensive analysis and report on desegregation tensions throughout the United States, particularly as these affect education, housing, labor, human rights generally, as well as Jews and Jewish institutions. There will be a detailed examination of extremist groups in the South, the dangers of anti-Semitism and community problems in coping with violence and hate peddlers.

The meeting will discuss the threat of Nasser-Soviet domination in the Middle East and its meaning for Israel’s security. It will also evaluate the United States foreign policy in relation to Israel and the Middle East.

Dr. John Slawson, AJC executive vice president, addressing the opening session, asserted “no one voice nor one group could speak for the Jews in the United States.” He emphasized that a “centralized authority” in Jewish life in the United States “was theoretically unsound and practically unfeasible,” and decried any conception that “there exists a Jewish position on American domestic policy or a Jewish position on American foreign policy.”

Jewish community groups, he stressed, should be organized “within the frame work of voluntarism and each Jewish organization should express only the views of its own particular constituency.” He said that the “nature of Jewish communal organizations in America must correspond to the nature of American society and tradition.”