The establishment of an International Jewish Assembly to act as spokesman for world Jewry, including the Jews in Israel, was urged here at the convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of America, central body of Conservative rabbis. The proposal was made by Rabbi Edward T. Sandrow, president of the organization.
“The world Jewish community,” he said, “is today so splintered and truncated that leaders of other faiths do not know where to turn for official statements of Jewish opinion. We have, as it were, no address in the world.” He suggested that the International Jewish Assembly be comprised of official representatives of all major groups of world Jewry–synagogal and lay, Zionist and non-Zionist–including Jewish groups in this country, Israel and all other countries abroad.
Rabbi Sandrow also appealed to the Soviet Union to permit representatives of the Synagogue Council of America to establish and maintain contact with Jews in the Soviet Union. He said a delegation of the Synagogue Council could carry “spiritual solace” as well as badly needed educational and religious materials to the Jews of Russia.
Simon Greenberg, vice-chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, at a dinner honoring his 60th birthday called for a renaissance of the role of the synagogue in the life of the Jewish people everywhere. “If Judaism and Jewish life are to experience a renaissance many of us believe in store for them, if we are to over come the spiritually sterile impasse faced by the Zionist, the philanthropic and the self-defense movements which have dominated Jewish life, there must be a return to the synagogue and to the siddur,” he said.
Rabbi Arthur H. Hertzberg, of Englewood, N. J., said: “We must demand authenticity of ourselves and of our colleagues in the rabbinate. If our lay people need psychiatric advice, they can go to people with professional skills. We rabbis have one skill. We must-immerse ourselves in study, for rabbis alone are masters of the Torah living by its precepts with honesty and devotion, and helping the Jewish community by our teaching and by our example.”
At the night session, six rabbis were inducted into the National Beth Din,-the Conservative movement’s religious court, after having completed two years of post-graduate study at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
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.
