International Conference on Progressive Judaism Opens in Holland

Unless the forces of religion in Israel succeed in establishing emphasis on the special mission of the Jew and his prophetic calling, the Jew in Israel will cease to be a Jew, Dr. Eugene Mihaly, head of the Department of Homiletics and Mid rash at America’s Hebrew Union College, told the tenth international conference of the World Union for Progressive Judaism here today.

Delivering the principal address at the conference’s session at Amsterdam’s Hotel Carlton, Dr. Mihaly warned that Israel’s failure to develop stress on its religious mission would be “calamitous for Israeli Jewry” and “would threaten world Jewry itself” His talk was the subject of day-long discussion by Reform religious and lay leaders from many countries of the world.

“Israel is like every other people and Israel is different with a special task and a special mission,” he said. “When viewed outside the religious context, as secular categories the result is either assimilation, disappearance as a people, or narrow chauvinism, and encrusted particularism.

“In the State of Israel, where assimilation, in the sense of the Jews’ being like the dominant group everywhere is the standard pattern and aim, the point of emphasis religiously should be on the side of the special and peculiar task and mission, world-wide in scope, the Jewish religious consciousness demands,” he said.

“Unless the forces of religion succeed in this emphasis on the special mission of the Jew, on his prophetic calling, the Jew in Israel will become an Israeli like the resident of Syria is a Syrian but he will cease to be a Jew. Not only would this be calamitous for Israeli Jewry, but, due to historic and emotional ties, it would threaten wourld Jewry itself,” Dr. Mihaly stressed.