Ii Reform Student Rabbis Will Live and Work in Slums in 3rd Year of Urban Program

Eleven Reform student rabbis will live and work in the slums of major cities this summer in the third year of the Rabbinic Interneship in Urban Affairs program, Rabbi Balfour Brickner reported today. The project, the first under Jewish religious sponsorship, is a program of the commission on interfaith activities of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Jewish Chautauqua Society, the major institutions of American Reform Judaism. Rabbi Brickner is commission director.

The student rabbis and the cities in whose ghettos they will live and work for 10 weeks, starting July 1 are; Albert Silverman of Boston, in Boston; Mayer Perlmuter of Chicago, in Chicago; Mel Hecht of Miami, in Cincinnati; Michael Zedek of Albany, N.Y. in Miami; Robert Goodman of New York City in New York; Lewis Weiss of Philadelphia, in Philadelphia; Frank Sparber of Alexandria, Va., in Washington, D.C.; James Michaels of Auburn, N.Y. in St. Paul, Minn.; and a last-minute substitution to serve in the Milwaukee ghetto. The initial choice withdrew when he became engaged to marry and his replacement is expected to be Steven Chester of Los Angeles. Two other Reform rabbinic students are in process of selection to live and work in the Los Angeles ghettos. All are students of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform seminary.

As in past years, the internships are sponsored locally by Jewish community relations agencies. Rabbi Brickner said each rabbinic intern agrees to live in the slum area for 10 weeks, working with Protestant and Catholic urban clergymen to study at first hand the problems of the urban poor, to provide help in anti-poverty programs, to examine black-white tension, to evaluate the response of public and private agencies to inner city needs, and to study the attitudes of the local Jewish community toward the urban crisis. The intern also is expected to make proposals on action programs the Jewish community might undertake for the urban poor. The assignment includes preparation of a weekly report which is sent to the local sponsoring agency, to the commission and to the seminary.

An innovation in the project this year, Rabbi Brickner said, was an orientation session to be held in New York City June 11-12, which is being arranged by the staff of the Metropolitan Urban Service Training, an agency set up to train people for service in the ghetto. Rabbi Brickner said the experiences of the first two summer programs led to a decision that such an orientation would help the interns to perform their functions more effectively. The internship program was started in the summer of 1967 with one rabbinic student. Last year five students served in the program.

The five rabbinic interns last year reported at the close of their service periods unanimous agreement that whites, generally, including Jews, had virtually no understanding of the rage and desperation of ghetto dwellers.