A plea for a special relationship between American Jews and Negroes, based on “a common purpose” of “teaching America at long last what community and pluralism are all about,” was made here last night to 700 Jewish communal workers by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist. Dr. Leonard J. Fein, speaking at the opening session of the 70th annual meeting of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service, said he was not optimistic about the capacity of America to accommodate “the new militancy” of Negroes and other non-White minorities. He added, however, that if such an accommodation were achieved, it would be because Americans had learned to live with difference and that with such success, “we Jews will be among its unintended beneficiaries.” The session began with a moment of standing tribute by the delegates to the memory of the assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy for whom a memorial service was held this afternoon.
Dr. Fein also asserted that American Jews historically had felt they gained acceptance by stressing they were not “different” from their neighbors, while Negroes had recently turned from a similar denial of group identity to an assertion of identity. In stressing their “non-difference” the political scientist said, American Jews “missed an opportunity to force society to come to grips with real differences.”
He reported that some of his Jewish academic colleagues, who had thought they were free from “parochial commitment.” felt genuinely involved during the Six-Day war last June. He urged the Jewish community to be more assertive and less concerned about its public relations image. He urged re-emphasis on institutions and agencies of the Jewish community and concern with things Jewish and “our links with the State of Israel.”
He said that the question for Jews concerning the Negro struggle for equality was not whether to speak out but rather what to say. He added that for Jews to suppose America would not contain a Jewish community that dares to assert itself is to sell the United States short and “to ignore the lesson of last June.”
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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.
