Dr. Kaplan Appeals for ‘jewish Ecumenism’ at Reconstructionist Dinner

An appeal for “Jewish ecumenism” and a new approach to Judaism as an “evolving religious civilization” was voiced here last night by Dr. Mordecai M. Kaplan, famous religious philosopher and founder of the Reconstructionist movement. The 83-year-old rabbi and exponent of Judaism as a faith of “naturalism” rather than “supernaturalism” spoke to more than 400 guests at the Hotel Pierre attending the twenty-fifth anniversary dinner of the Jewish Reconstructionist Movement.

Judaism as a religious civilization, Dr. Kaplan stated, is now on the threshold of a new stage in its 4,000-year history, “a stage in the conception of God as that aspect of the cosmos which impels and helps man, both individually and collectively, to achieve salvation or self-fulfillment.”

The Jewish faith, he said, is not the only religious civilization “whose very existence is being challenged” and whose “purpose and meaning have become irrelevant to the lives of those who profess it.” Dr. Kaplan also advocated the idea that Jews outside of Israel should reorganize themselves “into organically functioning communities and as links in the chain of the Jewish people which is anchored to Zion, the Jewish majority in the State of Israel.”

The future for Jews in the United States, as well as abroad, Dr. Kaplan declared, lies in a reinterpretation of the “contents of their religious tradition into terms of modern ethical and spiritual values that are relevant to the education of the conscience.” The dinner marked the first quarter-century of Reconstructionism as well as the thirtieth anniversary of the movement’s magazine, The Reconstructionist. Sharing the platform with Dr. Kaplan was Dr. Oscar Janowsky, historian and educational advisor to Jewish institutions.