Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization of America, urged the United States Government today to implement a new law aimed at protecting American business firms from being forced to engage in the Arab boycott against Israel. The action was taken at the 51st annual Hadassah convention which also featured the presentation to Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey of the 1965 Henrietta Szold Awar the organization’s highest honor.
The new law is an amendment to the 1959 Export Control Act, enacted into law earlier this year. It would protect American firms from being compelled to take part in any foreign boycott against countries friendly to the United States, but it leaves implementation to the President. The Hadassah resolution also called on local chambers of comer throughout the United States to ask American firms “not to cooperate” in such “restrict trade practices or boycotts.”
During the sessions today, the third day of the four-day conclave, the delegates also approved a resolution urging a continuing program of “public action and protest, designed to bring the facts of Soviet anti-Semitism to the attention of the American Government and people and to the attention of the Soviet Government.”
Charging that “abundant evidence” existed that the Soviet Government is “still maintaining a policy aimed at the spiritual and cultural extinction of Soviet Jews,” the delegates declared that despite some recent concessions, Soviet Jews were “still deprived of the means and institutions to maintain their cultural and religious heritage and to transmit it to their children.” The resolution added that “this violation of elemental human rights will not be accepted in silence by a generation that has in its own lifetime learned the fearful price of silence.”
HUMPHREY HONORED FOR SPONSORSHIP OF MEDICAL RESEARCH; GETS $1,000 PRIZE
The Henrietta Szold Award, which carries with it a prize of $1,000, was given to Mr. Humphrey with a citation lauding him for “advancing the idea of freedom” and for “active sponsorship and energetic encouragement of national and international medical research.” Medical research in various countries, including Israel, and sponsorship of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, are among the major Hadassah achievements.
The award was presented to the Vice-President by Mrs. Herman Shulman, chairman of the women’s organization’s award committee, at tonight’s convention dinner. In accepting the award, Mr. Humphrey paid tribute to Miss Szold, saying he felt she would have been “very much at home in America of 1965 because today we are building the free and compassionate society she worked for all her life.”
At another session, Dr. Moshe Davis, director of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry in Jerusalem, and former provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, told the delegates that the present generation of Jews was probably the most educated in history in general studies, and perhaps “the least literate” in Jewish learning. He said this fact posed the challenge to Jewish educators and leaders to discover new formulas “to interpret and transmit the eternal universal and particular values of the Jewish tradition” to such a Jewish generation.
Dr. Davis said that the fact that religious pluralism was taking root in the United States offered Jews “a singular opportunity to play a distinctive role on the world scene” for, while the Jews are a people, “the special quality of their group expression derives from the religious basis.” He stressed that religion “will be the only bridge between American Jewry and other world communities, and between them and Israel.” The real hope, therefore, for cohesiveness between Jews in Israel and Jews in other countries, he contended, “is to find the religion-cultural thread which will be the unifying factor.”
He also appealed for more immigration from American Jewry to Israel, asserting that “a Jewish community that wants to be part of the mainstream of the Jewish tradition should inspire a portion of its numbers to want to go to Jerusalem. Otherwise, it may not succeed in becoming a Jewish community at all.” He urged American Jewry to reintroduce the concept that “we should direct ourselves and our young to spend at least a portion of our life in the Holy Land.”
I. L. Kenen, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, told the delegates that, if the United States could not stop the Middle East arms race because “the Soviet Union insists on using surplus weapons for political currency, then we must ask our Government to adopt a frank and open policy to strengthen Israel’s deterrent capacity.” Noting statements by President Nasser of Egypt that war with Israel was in evitable, and that he was acquiring growing quantities of arms from Russia “to fight that war,” Mr. Kenen said that the United States “should do everything it can to make it hard-or for him — and nothing to make it easier.” He added that, before the United States resumed economic aid to Egypt, “it should insist that Nassor cease the accumulation of weapons and once and for all give up his wars against his neighbors.”
Dr. Miriam K. Fraund, chairman of the Hadassah Zionist Affairs committee, stated in another address that Hadassah worked for the day when Arabs and Israelis would join to advance the interests of all Middle East peoples. “We hope,” she declared, “that our Government will contribute its great prestige and leadership” to induce the Arabs to meet with Israel for peace talks.”
Mrs. Harry P. Fierst, Hadassah Jewish National Fund chairman, reported that Hadassah had started a three-year program to raise $2,500,000 for a 2,200-acre project,”Hadassah Ha-Galil,” to be located near the Lebanese border. She said it was of vital importance to Israel’s security that this land in the central Galilee be reclaimed, that roads and homes be built, and industries be developed for Jewish settlers. She reported that the JNF planned to develop two new towns in Hadassah Ha-Galil, Nahalot and Cermiel.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
