“Unless the adult Jew studies Torah to tie his roots to Sinai, there is little hope that he will not succumb to the barrage of secular influences that surround him,” Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the dean of Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem and chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei Ha Torah (Council of Jewish Sages), told 3000 delegates at the Agudath Israel 54th national convention at the Sheraton Deauville Hotel here.
The renowned Torah scholar urged that Agudath Israel’s Adult Torah Study program, Torah education network, engage upon a block-by-block program to methodically cover Jewish neighborhoods to organize home-study courses for Jews. “The single source of strength to keep the Jew alive today even more than in previous generations when the societal inroads were not as pervasive as today, is the study of Torah which cannot be substituted by gimmicks or flash effects,” he declared.
Rabbi Moshe Sherer, executive president of Agudath Israel of America, called on Premier Yitzhak Rabin to oust Education Minister Aharon Yadlin because “Yadlin insists upon placing young Jewish. Israeli exchange students in non-Jewish homes in the U.S., thus pouring oil in the fires of assimilation and intermarriage.”
Sherer denounced Yadlin for stating in the Knesset last month, in reply to a demand by an Agudist Knesset deputy that the Israeli students should be transferred to Jewish families, that “the Education Ministry had requested the gentile American families not to provide the youngsters with non-kosher food.”
Sherer also reported that the American Agudath Israel organization will in its 55th year undertake to “harness the huge manpower resources of yeshiva graduates nationally for a consciousness raising program among the Jews, to vastly expand the religious and social services provided by Agudath Israel with a unique Torah flavor.”
DEBATE ON JOINING JCRC
A heated debate took place on the issue as to whether Agudath Israel should join the newly formed New York City Jewish Community Relations Council. The controversy centered around the fear that providing the New York City Jewish populace with a permanent representative voice on which the large percentage is non-Orthodox, the unique halachic position of the independent Orthodox Jewish community will be watered down and lose its independence.
The protagonists rejected this argument by pointing to the veto clause on religious issues in the Jewish Community Relations Council bylaws. The entire issue was transferred to the highest rabbinic authority of the Agudath Israel movement, the Council of Jewish Sages, which after conducting hearings will render a ruling, binding the entire organization.
Among the resolutions passed at Agudath Israel’s convention was a demand that no financial pressure be applied by Jewish agencies against Soviet emigrants who opt in Vienna for going to a country other than Israel. “Regardless of the negative aspects of Russian emigrants making use of Israeli visas to seek their haven in other countries, discriminating against these-persons violates every Jewish tradition,” the resolution declared.
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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.
