The National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States today called on its 34,000,000 members to “register their condemnation” of the Soviet drive against Jews. A resolution to this effect was adopted yesterday by the Council’s general board, which represents 30 Protestant denominations.
Emphasizing that the campaign against Jews in the countries behind the Iron Curtain is “painfully reminiscent of the anti-Semitic madness of Hitler” the resolution said that “the present series of purges in Russia and in other lands behind the Iron Curtain are an offense to God and a violation of the moral law. ” It also expressed the hope that “freedom-loving people everywhere will register their condemnation of these assaults upon the Jewish community.”
The Rabbinical Alliance of America today sent a message to the State Department for worldwide broadcast through the Voice of America calling on the people of the free world not to permit recurrence of the “tragedy of Treblinka, Maidenak and Buchenwald.” Asserting that an aroused public opinion would compel the Soviet authorities to “withdraw their unjustified charges” against Jews, the Alliance asked the State Department to protest to the U.S.S.R. against the anti-Semitic attacks.
The New York Board of Rabbis today called for a day of prayer to seek divine guidance “so that we may employ all means at our command to rescue our brethren who live in peril.” Members of the Greater New York Council of the Labor Zionist Organization of America will picket the offices of the Communist newspapers “The Daily Worker” and “The Morning Freiheit” tomorrow in protest against the Communist campaign against the Jews in Eastern Europe.
(In London, Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie today issued a special prayer to be recited in synagogues throughout the British Commonwealth “on behalf of our unhappy and oppressed brethren in Russia and the countries under her domination.” It is to be recited immediately after the prayer for the Queen and the royal family.)
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
