Dr. Silver Analyzes Problems of American Jewry at Annual Convention of Reform Rabbis

The question of whether there is a tendency to drift away from Judaism in the United States was the central them of a presidential address delivered today by Dr. Abba Hilled Silver at the opening session of the 57th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, attended by more than 400 Reform rabbis, including over 100 returned chaplains.

Dr. Silver disagreed with those who expressed pessimism on this score. “Our danger,” he said, “was not in disloyalty or apostasy, but in fear and depression that may beat down the spirits of our people and may paralyze their creative efforts.” He emphasized that a religious revival is needed to dispel the fears of American Jewry.

Dr. Silver also urged the formation of a permanent American Jewish Conference, the strengthening of the Synagogue Council of America as an instrumentality of Jewish faith, and the withdrawal from the Council for Judaism of the rabbis still associated with it. On the subject of Palestine, Dr. Silver limited himself to urging the continuation of efforts for the immigration of 100,000 European Jews to Palestine in accordance with the desire of President Truman and the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine.

Recalling the murder of 6,000,000 Jews in Europe, one-third of the Jewish population of the world, Dr. Silver said that “Jewry will continue to feel the traumatism of the physical and psychic shock which it suffered long after the second World War will have become a faded memory among men.”

SAYS “SO-CALLED GOOD WILL MOVEMENT” IS A MANIFESTATION OF FEAR

In answering the question as to whether Jews in America are drifting away from Judaism, Dr. Silver said: “There is fear in the hearts of our people. The grave accent which American Jews have placed in recent years upon fighting anti-Semitism and on so-called good will movements is a manifestation of a fear which is gnawing at their hearts. We do not mean to disparage these activities or to question their value. But clearly they cannot exercise the fear from the hearts which beat wildly nor can they strengthen the feeble hand.

“Only an ardent concentration and emphasis by the leaders of our people–lay and religious alike–upon the religious message of Judaism to the Jews of our day, the only stirring proclamation of its undefeated Messianic faith, and its heroic challenge to the men of Israel to live and labor worthily in spite of all danger and contumely for the good and just society of free men which our prophet visioned and by whose vision our people was forever covenanted, only such a religious revival, with all of its absorbing tasks and its undergirding disciplines will set the red blood of courage and confidence coursing through the veine of our people.

“It remains to be seen whether we of this generation still possess that insight and statesmanship and that sure instinct of survival which stood our ancestors in such good stead in all their trials. One of the reassuring signs has been the new awareness which has come recently to our congregations and, through them, to their national organizations, of the imperative need to expand their programs, to improve the method and content of religious education and of the training of teachers and rabbis, to found new congregations and to utilize all the facilities of mass education to bring the message of Judaism to our people. It is good that we have been alerted,” Dr. Silver declared.