American Jewish Committee Told Christians Combat Anti-semitism

An American Jewish Committee officer reported here yesterday, on his return from Europe, that there was a widespread movement among both Protestant and Catholic church leaders in Europe to “combat anti-Jewish prejudice rooted in religious texts and materials.”

The report was made by Ralph Friedman, chairman of the Committee’s administrative board, at a meeting here of the organization’s executive board. He said that the movement was being expressed in “a renewed study of the Old Testament and Judaism, and a respect for them not merely as biblical relics but as important contemporary forces.” He said there has also been more research to determine the historic ties between Judaism and other religions, and added that such understanding “often results in changes in the teaching of the catechism.”

One of the most potent forces spurring this re-study, he added, was the question posed by Christian religious leaders: “How could Hitlerism have occurred in an old Christian country?”

Morris B. Abram, chairman of the executive board, reported at the same session that state governments in this country “have actually been instruments through which a minority of the people” have “legally” imposed their views, taxes and programs on the majority.” Because of outmoded voting systems “a minority of voters control both houses of the state legislatures in all the 50 states.”

SONNABEND SEES NEW ERA IN CATHOLIC-JEWISH RELATIONS EMERGING IN VATICAN

A.M. Sonnabend, of Boston, American Jewish Committee president, told a session that the Ecumenical Council, now being held at the Vatican, was creating “a new era of friendship and cooperation in Catholic-Jewish relations.” He said that, even before the Council was convened, the Committee had been impressed by the “serious desire” of Pope John XXIII “to improve relations between Catholics and Jews.”

Mr. Sonnabend said Jews were especially concerned about additional steps needed to reach what Pope John had called “a new order of human relations” based on “the paramount dignity of the human person.” The Committee head listed these steps as:

Re-examination of the sources of anti-Semitism arising from early church and synagogue history; repudiation of the Christian charge of Jewish collective responsibility for all time for the death of Jesus; setting the distinction between the essential religious teaching of the Catholic church “and the unessential and unfortunate encrustations of time”; and reconsidering by Catholic teaching and preaching missions of Catholic liturgy and textbooks of references to Jews to bring these into consistency “with the findings of present-day historical research and scholarship.”

Harris Berlack, chairman of the Committee’s foreign affairs committee, told another session that anti-Semitism, exploited as “a political weapon,” was endangering Jews in various parts of the world. He said in his report that there was a direct tie between the exploitation of anti-Semitism “and the policies of totalitarian governments, as well as fanatical nationalism and highly unstable regimes.”

Mr. Berlack listed the major areas of such anti-Semitic activities as South America, particularly Argentina; Algeria, France and the Soviet Union. Citing the arrests, trials and convictions of Russian Jews for alleged economic crimes, he said that Jews in the Soviet Union were being used as “scapegoats” for serious economic difficulties. He also cited the closing of scores of synagogues in Russia, the banning of publications of Jewish ritual items, barring of a central Jewish religious organization, a ban on Hebrew, and enforced isolation of Russian Jews from those of other countries.

Abba Eban, Israel’s Minister of Education, another speaker at the sessions, told the AJC that small nations, like Israel, can play “an assertive role” in world affairs only by developing “an intense vitality of the spirit.”