Jewish Organizations Participate in Selma March Supporting Negroes

Representatives of national and various local Jewish organizations around the country, both lay and rabbinical, were participating today in the march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, supporting demands for equal voting rights for Negroes and backing President Johnson’s proposal for legislation guaranteeing such rights, according to dispatches received here today.

The American Jewish Committee, in a call by its executive vice-president, Dr. John Slawson, urged all its chapters and members throughout the country “to participate to the fullest extent possible” in the Selma-Montgomery march. Dr. Slawson announced that the AJC has designated two men to represent the organization in the march, Brant Coopersmith, AJC area director for the Upper South, he said, headed the AJC delegation on the first leg of the march today, from Selma to the first overnight stopping place, 11 miles away. Later this week, Harry Fleischman, race relations coordinator for the AJC, will head the AJC’s delegation on the final two legs of the march into Montgomery.

Three national Jewish religious women’s groups sent a joint telegram to President Johnson, supporting his demand that Congress act promptly on the proposed voting rights bill. The organizations were the women’s Branch of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Organizations of America, the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America (Conservative), and the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (Reform).

Similar wires to President Johnson and to the Congressional delegations from New York were sent by the Farband-Labor Zionist Order and by the Brooklyn Jewish Community Council. Previously, every major Jewish national organization had sent telegrams to the President, taking the same stand.

A Selma Jew, Seymour Palmer, who had told newsmen in an interview in the Alabama city that northerners were at least partly responsible for the violence in Alabama by coming there to help “defy authority,” was answered today in a statement by Rabbi Seymour Siegel, secretary of the Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis. Dr. Siegel, who is associate professor of theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Rabbi S. Gershon Levi, treasurer of the Assembly, led a group of Conservative rabbis who went to Selma last week to participate in the civil rights demonstrations there. Addressing Mr. Palmer directly, Rabbi Siegel stated:

“We are both Jews whose ancestors taught the world the principles of justice. We are both Jews who have suffered too much for so long. Let us both Join in prayer and action to turn the hearts of men from hatred to love; from discrimination to acceptance of all men as brothers; and from passive indifference to constructive and courageous action on behalf of all who suffer.”