American Jewish Congress Acts on Chalutz and Vatican Issues

The American Jewish Congress concluded its biennial convention here last night with a resolution affirming its support of the Chalutz movement and criticizing “attempts to erect barriers between American Jewry and Israel.”

The convention also adopted a declaration opposing the appointment of an American Ambassador to the Vatican. The delegates urged President Truman to reconsider the nomination “in the interests of fundamental American democratic principles and of inter-religious harmony and accord in this country.”

The convention affirmed its “firm and abiding faith in the continued security of American Jews under American freedom” and in U.S. Jewry’s capacity to develop a “deeply meaningful Jewish life” in this country. It affirmed too, its belief that the conditions of American freedom offered the opportunity for American Jews to contribute fully to the shaping of American life and culture. The resolution also called for maximum support for the United Jewish Appeal and the Israel bond drive.

In opposing the appointment of a U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, the A.J.C. declaration says: “President Truman’s announcement of the appointment of an American Ambassador to the Vatican represents recognition of a particular religious body or institution as a temporal power. Such diplomatic recognition constitutes a serious breach in the separation of church and state and provides both precedent and encouragement for the intensification of religious pressures on governmental policy.”

OPPOSITION TO SENDING U.S. ENVOY TO VATICAN PROVOKES DEBATE

Dr. Horace Kallen, professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research, said Catholics in the United States would be placed in an anomalous and difficult position if the Vatican were to be recognized as a political as well as a religious power. Shad Polier, vice-president of the American Jewish Congress, argued that the American Protestant community, which had sided with Jews on other phases of the church and state argument, was waiting for Jewish organizations to express themselves openly on the issue. Opponents of the resolution contended it was not expedient and would merely provoke a controversy with the Catholic Church.

The convention also charged that “the principle of separation of church and state is being seriously threatened in the U.S. today.” Citing the attempts to extend religious instruction and observance in the public schools; to secure public funds for the support of parochial institutions; and to utilize public institutions for sectarian purposes as serious examples of the way this attack was being made, the delegates opposed the allocation of public funds for any sectarian purpose.

“As Americans unconditionally committed to the preservation of democratic freedom and as Jews, in whose history religion has pizyed a dominant role, the American Jewish Congress is deeply concerned with the maintenance of the principle of separation of church and state and the preservation of religious liberty,” a resolution said.

The failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on Genocide was sharply condemned by the convention as a “blemish on our national honor.” Declaring that this failure has “deterred action by many other nations,” a convention resolution charged that “we have been disappointingly and dangerously derelict in an issue of international morality where our country should have inspiringly led.”