The Board of Governors of B’nai B’rith recommended at its annual spring meeting here yesterday a call to all Jews to intensify efforts for human rights and for reduction of nuclear weapons stockpiles.
The board specifically appealed to anti-nuclear weapons groups to stop their “one-sided” protests and push for Soviet, as well as American, nuclear arms reductions. The board said, in one of a series of resolutions, that “concentration of efforts on only one side will embolden the other side and cannot contribute to a safer world.”
The board called on the United States and the Soviet Union to enter immediately into a “bilaterial and verifiable agreement on the testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, followed by mutual reductions on both sides,” to diffuse what the board called “mankind’s most dangerous stalemate.” The board also called on all nations to sign a new test-ban treaty that would eliminate any future nuclear tests.
A resolution on strife-torn Latin America said that “support of democratic institutions is the best guarantee of human rights, ” and called on all countries to deny aid to any Latin American government that has not demanded respect for human rights. The Reagan Administration is currently supplying the Government of El Salvador with millions of dollars in economic and military aid and has asked Congress for additional funds.
The board asserted that Jews have a “special responsibility” to speak out against violations of human rights because “anti-democratic governments pose a threat to them, to other minorities, and to all outspoken citizens.”
The board also reaffirmed its strong support of the Jackson/Vanik amendment; it called on President Reagan to make it “unequivocally clear to the Arabs that they, not Israel, are the obstacle to peace.” It asked the United Nations General Assembly to “cancel the international conference on Palestine,” scheduled to be held in Paris in August under UNESCO auspices; it urged the U.S. to continue to support the Helsinki Commission and commended Max Kampelman, the U.S. representative to the commission, for his efforts to reunite family and promote freedom of emigration, and the board declared opposition to prayer in public schools as well as tuition tax credits for parents of children who attend private and religious schools.
In another resolution, the board noted that the Ethiopian government was allowing greater access to Jewish citizens but asked that government to allow emigration of Jews who wish to be reunited with families in Israel. The board also said it would call on B’nai B’rith members around the world to ask their governments to help “rescue Ethiopian Jewry from their appalling condition.”
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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.
