Hadassah Conference to Focus on Problem of Disaffected Jewish Youth

A four-day mid-winter meeting of Hadassah, focusing on the “problem of disaffected Jewish youth,” will open here tomorrow. Other topics to be discussed include Israel today. Eastern European Jewry, Jews in Arab lands, and Aliyah. In a prepared keynote address, Mrs. Max Schenk, Hadassah national president, said that some Jewish youth of today, opposing the principles of their parents, have adopted the “philosophy of the enemy.” This “exaggerated liberalism,” she said, leads many of these youths to denounce Zionism and Israel as an expression of hyper-nationalism. She contended that many Jewish youths are ready to “fight and even die” for the blacks, the Vietnamese, the Biafrans, the Greeks and the Czechs, while rejecting Judaism.

She called for an educational program that would “demolish the lies and attacks” the present Zionism and Jewry as “imperialistic and expansionist.” She called these attacks a danger to the entire Jewish community, particularly because they are “being swallowed and absorbed into the blood stream of Jewish youth of the new left persuasion.” Mrs. Schenk added: “Let us not decry the blindness of this youth. Let us rather try to open their eyes. We must fill in the gaps in their knowledge–even where possible the lacks in their personal experience.” Mrs. Schenk said that Hadassah’s medical, vocational training and Youth Aliyah programs were also “high on the agenda.” Other speakers at the meeting will include Hon. Shlomo Argov, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., Dr. Yoram Dinstein, Consul General of Israel in New York and Professor Nathan Rosenstreich, Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Members of Hadassah’s national board, representing more than 318,000 women in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, will be at the meeting.