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Illinois Lt. Governor Warns Against Anti-israel Statements in Church Press

April 14, 1970
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The church press and publicists have an important role as conciliators in this turbulent world, Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon of Illinois told several hundred delegates attending the recent Religious Communications Congress and declared he had seen too many anti-Israel comments in the church press. Recalling that the church press had in many cases been silent on Hitler in the 1930’s, Mr. Simon expressed the hope that similar mistakes would not be made today in the face of the needs of a people who have suffered from church indifference. “We can be both pro-Israel and pro-Arab,” he said. “We must recognize the needs of all suffering people.” The Democratic official, a son of a Lutheran minister married to a Catholic said that in his half Catholic half Lutheran home in a small Illinois community that is all white and all Christian he has a mezzuah on bis door and menorah in his living room. This, he said, is a symbol that the Jewish people who have suffered Catholic and Lutheran prejudices must today be accepted as individuals.

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