Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion renewed his plea today for immigration from the United States, particularly of youth. He declared this immigration was “fundamentally important” both to Israel and to American Jewry and would “strengthen the intellectual forces in Israel.”
In a message to the tenth convention of the American and Canadian Immigrants Association here, Mr. Ben-Gurion affirmed that Jewish youth could live a full Jewish life in a rebuilt homeland. He recalled meetings with the late Professor Albert Einstein and with Professor Robert Oppenheimer, both of whom, he said, agreed that American Jewish youth could be inspired with the pioneering ideal and the will to participate in the historic endeavor in Zion.
The Prime Minister said that although there was no intentional assimilation policy in American Jewry except that of the Council for Judaism, there was “actual and unconscious assimilation.” He said young American intellectuals had to come to Israel to create the link between Israel” and American Jewry without which American Jewry could not survive since its Jewishness was diminishing and even once-a-year synagogue attendance was becoming more a social than a religious affair.
Mr. Ben-Gurion added that Prof. Einstein had once said to him that American Jewish intellectuals would come to Israel because they were not fully trusted in America. Even after the McCarthy era, Mr. Ben-Gurion said, Prof. Oppenheimer had told him that many American Jewish intellectuals would go to Israel because there was no meaning to Jewish life in America, France and Britain.
Rabbi Israel Goldstein, member of the Jewish Agency executive, told the convention that President Kennedy’s call for a “peace corps” would be answered by many young American Jews who would naturally show precedence to Israel’s needs. He said there was a “more positive” attitude in America to emigration to Israel but stressed that conditions must be created in Israel to help the newcomers.
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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.
