An optimistic view of the future of American Jewry was expressed here last night by Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, noted Zionist leader, addressing 2,000 persons at a meeting at Hunter College arranged by the American Zionist Council on the occasion of the American Jewish Tercentenary celebration.
“Given peace and economic stability,” Dr. Silver said, “the American Jewish community will move forward and develop. It will expand its cultural and religious life and institutions and will make worthy contributions to the total life of America and world Jewry.
“The American Jewish community of tomorrow will, in the main, be what American Jews will make it. External pressure may from time to time be massive, but the internal motivations will be decisive. It should be remembered that always it was not external compulsion or any historic dialectics which kept the Jewish people alive, but fierce, stiff-necked voluntarism.
“Given devoted and well-informed leadership and adequate religious training of our youth, we may look to the future of the American Jewish community, barring disastrous revolutionary changes in the structure of American government and society, with a good measure of confident hope,” Dr. Silver stated.
The Zionist leader emphasized that “the guiding principle should be maximal participation in American life and maximal devotion to its progress and security, along with maximal interest in and support of Israel.” He lauded American Jewry’s contributions to the creation of the Jewish State. “The great political victories which culminated in the decision of the United Nations, and in the recognition of the State of Israel by the American Government, were due in a very large measure to the activities of the American Jewish community,” he stressed.
American Zionists, Dr. Silver declared, should “most decidedly oppose” positions taken by the U. S. Government which “appear to us to be unsound, unjust or ill-advised.” At the same time he cautioned against interpreting “all actions of which we do not approve as stemming from ill-will or malice.”
Asserting that “we should not accept or concur in any foreign policy of our Government, whether in relation to Israel or for that matter to any other country, which does not appear to us to be just and good for the American people,” Dr. Silver added: “But when we criticize and government for wrong policies toward Israel, we should never lose sight of the basically friendly and cooperative attitude which has persisted through many decades.”
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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.
