Jewish organizations here are having no trouble in getting police permission for public meetings as required under existing South African emergency regulations. Communal life is proceeding normally. Prayers for peace and security in South Africa were offered in all synagogues.
Many local rabbis were reported today to be in disagreement with the call of Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz requesting that prayers be recited both for the security of the Union of South Africa during the current racial crisis and for “political prisoners,”
Rabbi A. Kossowsky declared from the pulpit of Johannesburg’s Central Orthodox Synagogue that the Chief Rabbi spoke only for himself and not for the Jewish ecclesiastical authorities of the South African Jewish community. Rabbi Kossowsky said that those authorities had always taken the view that the synagogue should not be involved in issues having a political character.
Lay Jewish leaders were reported to share Rabbi Kossowsky’s views and were understood to resent the action of some Jewish groups in other countries “precipately passing” resolutions criticizing the actions of the South African Government in handling non-whites.
The Jewish rabbinical and lay leaders have stressed that the disturbances were a South African question and not a “Jewish issue” and that Jews abroad, like the Jews in South Africa, are not entitled to speak collectively as Jewish groups on such questions although they are entitled to have personal opinions on the issues.
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