Dr. Mordecai M. Kaplan called today on the Rabbinical Assembly of America to adopt a resolution urging members of the Assembly to Join existing peace organizations and to ask their congregants to join such organizations as well as to “strive to eradicate war from human life by whatever moral and religious influence we can bring to bear.”
Dr. Kaplan, senior professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, made the plea to 400 rabbinical delegates attending the 63rd annual convention of the association of Conservative rabbis here. He also called upon the religious leaders “not only to engage in wishful thinking and to pray for peace but also to plan for peace to transform their entire pattern of life and thought, in brief, to wage peace.”
Controversy marked the discussion which followed his address. Two physicists, Dr. William Davidon, chairman of the Department of Physics at Haverford College, and Dr. Herman Kahn, author of “On Thermonuclear War” and director of the Hudson Institute, took part in the discussion. They differed with each other and with Dr. Kaplan as to the best means for achieving peace and the proper role for religious leaders in the struggle to avoid nuclear warfare.
Dr. Davidon welcomed the interest of the rabbis in the problems of war and peace but questioned whether Dr. Kaplan’s recommendation of action within the bounds of present government policy was enough for “men of principle.” He said such a recommendation “entailed acceptance of the concept that man’s extermination is all right under some circumstances.” He asked how a rabbinic body could accept and support such a policy in the name of the preservation of human values.
Dr. Kahn replied that the present policy of the United States Government was designed to buy time and that this “purchase of time” had proved an effective device for prolonging the peace. He asserted that the most a religious body could do was to attempt “to work within the present government policy, making it more moral, more reasonable and more humane.”
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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.
