In observance of Race Relations Week, the Commission on Justice and Peace of the Central Conference of American Rabbis today issued a message expressing the hope that the time will come “when the evil of race prejudice will be cleansed from every phase of our national life.”
“We are pleased to note that among the thirty-two allied nations with whom our country is associated in the present struggle against tyranny, all races are represented,” the message said. “We record with appreciation the meeting of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill with Chiang Kaishek, leader of China’s four hundred million men of the yellow race. We are glad to have the Chinese as our allies. Our soldiers are fighting side by side with theirs. Cur aviators are flying wing by wing with theirs. In the Lend-Lease arrangement evolved by our country, we are sharing all we have now in a time of war with cur allies, regardless of race. May we not express the hope that in times of peace we shall rise to similar moral heights to share what we have with all, regardless of race, to rebuild and to reconstruct and to help backward peoples attain higher standards of living.”
The Central Conference of American Rabbis appeals especially in its message against Negro discrimination in this country. It points out that “the Negro has contributed much to our artistic, intellectual, industrial and agricultural life. It praises Negro participation in the armed forces. “We are ashamed of the race riots. They are a blot on our country, un-American and irreligious, fomented by the foes and not the friends of America,” the message says.
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