Election of officers of the United Synagogue of America will take place this morning, winding up the three-day convention of that organization and affiliated bodies, which began here at the Pennsylvania Hotel, Sunday morning.
More than 500 delegates were present, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohen, Executive Director of the United Synagogue announced yesterday. In his review of the year’s activities, Rabbi Cohen reported that a total of 51 new congregations had affiliated with the United Synagogue during the year.
Yesterday’s sessions were devoted to round table conferences on child and adult education. The fifth annual convention of the affiliated National Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs also took place simultaneously. The speakers were Dr. E. C. Lindemann, who took as his topic “Social Justice and Adult Education” and Theodore Charnas, who spoke on “The Jewish Point of View.”
The Women’s League also held a session Monday on the program of which were reports by the heads of various committees.
The convention of the main body was opened Sunday morning by Judge Hyman J. Reit, Chairman of the Convention Committee, who urged that a “back to the synagogue” movement be undertaken by the congregations. Louis J. Moss, president of the United Synagogue, followed with an address reviewing the present situation of the synagogue, and pleaded for full freedom of expression for the pulpit.
“It is absolutely essential that our pulpits be untrammeled and that our ministers have complete freedom of expression on all matters which they believe make for the happiness and contentment of the human being,” he said. “Their utterances should not be censored even though they be at variance with the views of the dominant group in control of their congregations.”
SOCIAL JUSTICE SYMPOSIUM
The same point of view was stressed by a number of speakers participating in a symposium on social justice, including Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, executive director of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies; Rabbi Samuel Freedman, of Philadelphia, and Professor Mordecai M. Kaplan of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Dr. Lowenstein in his address supporting the full freedom of rabbinical utterance argued that preaching alone would not suffice. “There must be intensive study and discussion and meeting of minds in an absolutely open forum.” There were difficulties in the way of congregational free speech, he pointed out, “in the social prejudices of the members of the congregations.” Once these difficulties are removed, the rabbi, “grounding himself on the Biblical, Talmudic and Rabbinical tradition and literature, must from this Jewish point of view immerse himself in a knowledge of the economic and sociological structure of the world in which we live. These are no longer simple matters of oppression of the agricultural laborer by the wealthy landlord or the ruling classes against which the prophets fulminated. No one is so simple as to conceive of the present situation merely in terms of a conflict between capital and labor.”
EMBRACES SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Professor Kaplan told the delegates that Jews must conceive of religion as the Torah does, as being not merely a matter of relationship of the individual to the universe, but as embracing social problems. The Torah dealt very definitely with such matters as poverty, usury and other economic problems and the Jewish rabbi, he said, must voice the Jewish thought on these social matters.
Rabbi Freedman, chairman of the Social Justice Committee of the United Syagogue, outlined plans formulated by this committee to support the movement for social justice among the congregations.
Before immersing itself in world problems, Rabbi Elias Margolis told the delegates, “Jews must integrate their own lives and solidify Jewish thought.” “To your tents, oh Israel,” was the slogan which Rabbi Margolis said he hoped would go forth from the convention.
Other speakers at the Sunday session were Mrs. Morris Silverman and Congressman Herman P. Koppleman of Connecticut.
WOMEN’S LEAGUE MEETS
The Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America, opened its convention with a session Sunday night. The opening address was delivered by Mrs. Samuel Spiegel, president of the organization, who made a plea that the Jewish woman evince greater interest in the Jewish youth for the preservation of Judaism.
The principal speaker at the session was Dr. Siegfried Wachsman, Medical Director of Sydenham Hospital, who spoke on “The Psychology of the Jew.” Other speakers were Mrs. Israel Davidson, acting president of the New York Branch of the Women’s League; Mrs. Martin Strauss, chairman of the credentials committee, and Mrs. Charles I. Hoffman, honorary president of the Women’s Synagogue.
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