News Brief

At the same time, Rabbi Harold Gordon, executive vice-president of the NYBR, confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that 25 Reform rabbis have left the Board because they did not go along with its ruling last June 29 barring membership to rabbis who performed mixed marriages. Rabbi Gordon said the mixed marriage performance ban still holds. The JTA reported in its Daily News Bulletin last Aug. 7 that between 25-30 rabbis had resigned from the NYBR in protest against the ban.

Asserting that “The Unity that characterizes the NY Board of Rabbis is indeed a remarkable achievement,” Rabbi Roth warned in his presidential address that “The main problem facing the Jewish community today is that of survival.” He noted that in the past three decades the world population practically doubled but the Jewish population in the U.S. remained at approximately six million–the same as it was 30 years ago.

Rabbi Roth said that if the Jewish birth-rate had merely kept pace with the general birth-rate there would be 12 million Jews in the U.S. today. “Sociologists have noted that this tragic condition is due primarily to two factors. One is the declining birth-rate; the other is a growing rate of assimilation,” Rabbi Roth said.

“We must therefore declare that the frequently projected goal of zero population growth should find no application in the Jewish community…It is survival that prompts mankind to seek limits; it is survival that should goad the Jewish community to grow….We must speak urgently for larger Jewish families,” Rabbi Roth declared.

With regard to assimilation, he said, “The burden of transmitting commitment to Jewish life lies with the family” rather than Jewish education. Jewish educators will succeed best, he said, “if you will bring a Jewish environment into your home and if the behavior of each member of the family and their interrelationships will be guided by Jewish traditions,” he said.

Rabbi Roth contended that the major threat to religious life today–to Protestantism as well as Judaism–“derives not from the existence of other religions but from the forces of secularism….Let us not squander our energies and exhaust ourselves in the process of struggling with each other. Let us rather invest our efforts in a cooperative venture to oppose the forces of secularism and to bring back into the fold those within our own communities who have become disenchanted with us.” Rabbi Roth holds a BA degree from Yeshiva University and an MA and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Yeshiva University.