“?irth of Israel Stimulates “nationalists,” to Conyrol U.S. Jewish Life, Rosenwald Says

The fifth annual conference of the American Council for Judaism opened here today, A report submitted by Leasing J. Rosenwald, president of the organization, declared that the “creation of the sovereign State of Israe1 has with alarming speed tremendously intensified the ‘Jewish nationalists’ desire to control the lives of American Jews.”

“We always knew, that a so-called ‘Jewish’ state was not an end in itself but only a step in the realization of a total program designed by ‘Jewish’ nationalists over a fifty-year period,” Rosenwald said. “We lost the struggle to prevent the creation of such a state. As Jews we could ill afford to lose to ‘Jewish’ nationalism in Palestine. As Americans, we cannot afford to be stampeded into losing the continuing struggle with ‘Jewish’ nationalism in the United States, in our national homeland,”

Declaring that the Jerusalem section of the Jewish Agency had imposed its solution upon “both the United Jewish Appeal and the United Palestine Appeal,” Rosenwald added: “The line of control now runs directly from the Israeli Government to the Jewish Agency to the United Palestine Appeal.” The crucial issue now, Rosenwald said as whether “in addition to American nationality and Israeli nationality, Jews in both states possess and are activated by a common nationality that is ‘Jewish.'”

The conference was also addressed by Rabbi Elmer Berger, executive director the organization, and by Prof. Milton R, Konvitz, Rabbi Berger urged that the tradition of universalism in Judaism be maintained and voiced regrets that the American rabbinate had not actively discouraged “an alliance of nationalism and Judaism.” of. Konvitz said that “the chief values or ideals that Israel can learn from us as Jews and Americans are those of religious liberty and cultural pluralism.”