Conservative Congregations’convention to Discuss Code for Lay Leaders

A code of minimum personal standards of religious practice for lay leaders of synagogues will be presented to the 1, 200 delegates assembled here for the four-day biennial convention of the United Synagogue of America, central body of the 734 Conservative congregations in the United States and Canada. The convention opened tonight.

The code of standards of synagogue practice adopted in 1957 will be reviewed by the delegates. Bernath L. Jacobs, president of the United Synagogue, said today. This code provides for: A ban on games of chance for synagogue fund-raising; standards of dignity at bar-mitzvahs, weddings and funerals; a ban on inter-congregational raiding covering both members and staff; the authority of the rabbi as arbiter on matters of religion; and disciplinary measures.

Rabbi Ralph Simon of Chicago, III, in his keynote address at the opening of the convention called for “a frontal attack on the self ignorance of the American Jew.” He said: “We cannot face the intellectual challenge of modern adult thought with a juvenile level of information. Jewish education today is a mile wide and an inch deep. The tragic truth is that our young intellectuals are going elsewhere to espouse causes which are in the very fabric of Judaism–social justice, racial equality, economic altruism and international peace.”

Rabbi Bernard Segal, executive director of the United Synagogue of America, said: “A virtual revolution has catapulted the synagogues into the forefront of Jewish life. More and more secularist Jews are returning to the synagogue and accepting the centrality of the Torah as a Jewish way of life.”