Jews in American and other lands will have a “most sympathetic relationship” to Israel and will help it so that “it will become a land of which Jews everywhere can be proud, but the Jews of Israel will be Israeli citizens and the Jews of the United States will be citizens of the United States and similarly with Jews in other lands,” Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver told the 53rd National Conference of Jewish Communal Service here last night.
He said that the Jews will “owe undivided allegiance to their respective countries and they will discharge loyally their full duties as citizens, and they will participate actively and whole-heartedly in the social and cultural life of the lands of their birth or adoption as Jews have always done.”
CREATIVE ROLE POSSIBLE FOR DIASPORA JEWRY
Diaspora Jewry, Dr. Silver declared, “need not remain a mere passive recipient of Israeli cultural influence. It can become, as indeed so often in the past it did become, creative in its own right, wherever the religion, language and literature of the Jewish people were fostered. It will be centered in Judaism or it will not survive,” he warned. “It will be as an ethnic-religious community that it will carry on in the American scene or will disintegrate in the course of time. Jewish life in America will wither and dry-rot will set in unless the tree sends its roots deep down into the rich soil of Jewish faith and Jewish learning.”
He said that whatever in American experience and tradition could enrich Israel life “we must continue to regard as a mandate and privilege.” He said that Israel can give much and already has, including a haven for three quarters of a million Jews, “a new status and dignity,” and for our children, “a new sense of self-esteem and equality.” Israel, he said, had infused a “new hope and zest for life” in the Jewish people.
Dr. Emanuel Gamoran, director of Jewish Education of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, told the conference that the power of religious tradition and the Zionist ideal, the two primary forces sustaining Jewish life and education during the last 40 years, were weakening and Jewish education, in years to come “must give children a sense of security by “socializing them into the Jewish home, the Jewish school, the synagogue and the community.”
The National Conference for Jewish Education, meeting at the conference, adopted a code of practice for executives in Jewish education.
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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.
