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Jews Explain Opposition to Calendar Reform to Foreign Diplomats

July 7, 1954
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Representatives of the League for Safeguarding the Fixity of the Sabbath, composed of representatives of 63 major Jewish organizations in the United States, have called on the diplomatic envoys of ten nations in Washington and at the United Nations to present the views of the Jews in opposition to a proposal to change the calendar in such fashion as to unfix the Sabbath, it was announced here by Isaac Rosengarten, secretary of the League.

Mr. Rosengarten said that he had visited the delegations of India, China and Norway at the United Nations and that representatives of the League and of the Seventh Day Adventists visited the Embassies here of Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, Pakistan, Turkey, Venezuela and Israel to explain their opposition to a proposal placed by India before the current session- in Geneva of the UN Economic and Social Council for reforming the world calendar through the device of a “blank day.”

The various diplomats showed little awareness of the opposition point of view, Mr. Rosengarten reported, and all promised to forward the League’s memorandum and the Seventh Day Adventists’ views to their governments for further study. Mr. Rosengarten asserted that few people realized the danger of the proposal being adopted by the UN body. He also said that few people, including foreign diplomats concerned with the problem, realized the economic and other disadvantages which would accrue to Jews in the United States if they attempted to follow their religion under the kind of calendar proposed by India.

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