[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval-Editor.]
The creation of a Conservative Jewish body within the United Synagogue of America, to deal with “problems of ritual and domestic law,” is urged by the “S. A. J. Review”, organ of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, of which Dr. Mordecai Kaplan is editor. Commenting on a report in the Bulletin of the organization of a new wing in German Jewry to be known as the Juedische Konservativen Vereinigung, the “S. A. J. Review” observes that “unfortunately there is no such group in this country” and goes on to say:
“There are Conservative congregations, and the S. A. J. is one of them. But there is no organized body of such congregations, though the need for it is imperative.
“Both the Reform and the Orthodox congregations in the United States have their own central bodies which act as coordinating and unifying agencies. The United Synagogue of America, which might have functioned as the centralizing agency of the Conservative congregations in this country, is in actuality of a hybrid nature trying to cater to the wants of both the Orthodox and the Conservative Jews. On this account, it has had to be too cautious and compromising, and has thus rendered its work ineffectual. It has avoided taking a definite stand on many important controversial issues, with the usual consequence that its influence and prestige have suffered.
“It would certainly not be advisable to have a fourth body organized. Within the United Synagogue itself, however, congregations which are as little Orthodox as they are Reformist should act cooperatively and deal with problems of ritual and domestic law in a thorough-going fashion. We hope the United Synagogue will recognize this need and not regard the formation of a Conservative bloc as insurgent. That is the only way in which the United Synagogue will come to play a significant part in the life of American Jewry.”
URGES ADOPTION OF “COMMON PRAYER” FOR ALL AMERICA
The suggestion made by the “United American Magazine” that the “common prayer” issued on Washington’s birthday by its joint authors, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel, director of the Hillel Foundation of the B’nai B’rith, Rev. John A. O’Brien, pastor of St. John’s Catholic Church of Urbana, Ill., and Rev. James C. Baker, pastor of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church of the same city, be adopted as the all-American prayer, is endorsed by the “Jewish Independent” of Cleveland which in its issue of Apr. 1, says:
“This prayer, which as Editor Langoe well points out, breathes ‘a spirit of tolerance and good will to every citizen of our land, is in keeping with the fundamental intent of religious freedom upon which this, our Nation, was founded.’
“Acknowledging the common Fatherhood of God and stressing the potency of the human fellowship that is founded upon the deeper unities of the spirit, the authors of the common prayer have given vibrant, eloquent utterance to truths which guided the lives of the Nation’s founders.
“The glow of human tolerance and sympathy animates the common prayer and mirrors the soul of the Union which the strivings and sacrifices of the founders called into being.”
KANSAS PAPER RIDICULES FORD
Most Americans did not read the anti-Jewish articles in Ford’s paper, the “Dearborn Independent”, and if they did see them they paid no attention to them, declares the Hutchinson (Kan.) “Herald”. In an editorial on the Ford-Sapiro trial in its March 16th issue, the paper writes as follows:
“We don’t like suits of this sort. They’re foolish, we believe. They stir up animosities that have died down. They start up new animosities.
“There’ll be nothing but personalities in the hearings. Most of us have forgotten all about the charges Ford made in his articles. Most of us didn’t pay much attention to them when they were made. Most of us didn’t even see them. And only a handful of us cared what Ford thought of this or that.
“Ford’s a good business man but as a publisher of a magazine and dictator of policies, he, to our way of thinking, is quite moist-in fact, all wet.”
More than $40,000 was contributed to the Chicago Hebrew Theological college at the annual banquet of the College held Sunday.
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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.
