The Jewish Peace Fellowship decided to cancel its co-sponsorship of a United States tour by a young Sabra pacifist who did not fight in Israel’s Six-Day War after a poll of members of its board, the pacifist and draft-counseling agency has reported. However, the JPF newsletter reported, Uri Davis, the Israeli pacifist, will make a tour of the United States this month and next. He will speak first in New York at Saint Peters Lutheran Church on Sunday under co-sponsorship of Rabbi Everett Gendler, a JPF board member, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The newsletter reported that several members of the JPF executive committee proposed that the 27-year-old Israeli pacifist be invited to speak in the United States under JPF auspices. Several board members disagreed, arguing that they did not believe that the JPF, as a Jewish organization could “assume the responsibility of sponsoring a lecture tour by an individual some of whose points of view may be considered deeply harmful to the Jewish people by many JPF members.” They cited “these critical days for the State of Israel” as a factor in their views. Rabbi Michael Solomon, chairman of the JPF, was quoted in the newsletter as contending that “no question so vividly confronts the young Jew as that of the Middle East. No problem so plagues the consciences of young Jews facing the draft and possible status of conscientious objector and no person can so clearly set before young men the questions and the agony in confronting such a decision as a young Jewish Israeli pacifist.” The newsletter said that the results of the mail poll were inconclusive and for that reason the JPF decided not to be a co-sponsor for the tour.
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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.
