Dr. Goldmann Warns Jews Against “unjustified Optimism”

“The Jewish people which has survived centuries of persecution, faces one of the most crucial junctures in its history. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency, declared today addressing the convention of the Mizrachi Organization of America which is taking place here.

Dr. Goldmann referred to the “total spiritual extinction” of the Jewish communities in countries behind the Iron Curtain as a result of government policy there, as well as to the dissipation of the small, dispersed Jewish communities in the free world which lack resilience for spiritual survival.

Too many Jews, Dr. Goldmann stated, show a “predisposition toward unjustified optimism; they seem to feel that with the defeat of the Nazis and the subsequent emergence of the sovereign Jewish State, the Jewish community is somehow automatically guaranteed forever.” This, he declared, is not so. “Rarely in Jewish history has our continuity as an entity been in greater peril than today,” he said. He pointed out that if Soviet policies toward the Jews continue, 2, 500, 000 behind the Iron Curtain “will be lost to us forever.”

“Surface peace, superficial stability and formal sufferance can be treacherously deceiving,” Dr. Goldmann warned, adding that American and Israel Jewries hold the key to Jewish survival and possess the potential needed to “build up resilience throughout the Jewish world.” Dr. Goldmann emphasized that Israel’s political difficulties are not a mere episode, and will not “be gone with the wind tomorrow.” He said the Zionist movement must be strong and vigorous to fulfil vital aims which no other movement, organization, or instrument can fulfil.