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Jews Will Reject Pope’s Invitation to Join Catholic Church, U.A.H.C. President Says

January 30, 1950
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Jews will not forsake their ancient faith, Dr. Maurice N. Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, declared in reply to the invitation of Pope Pius XII to all Protestants and Jews to join the Catholic Church. “The Protestants can indeed speak for themselves,” he stated, “but for us Jews, we will require greater justification for the demand that we forsake the faith of our fathers, tried and tested through the centuries and not found wanting.”

Addressing congregational leaders and representatives of Reform temples and synagogues in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisoonsin, meeting at the first annual convention of the Great Lakes Council of the U.A.H.C. today, Dr. Eisendrath called instead for “greater Judaism–greater Jewish community and congregational life, and strengthening of the national institutions of Judaism.” He added: “We will not join with a church which has stood virtually silent in the fact of the most Masphemous denial of religion in our generation. We Jews will not soon forget the official concordat between Rome and the Nazi regine, between the official spokesman of Catholicism and the most brutal, bestial mass murderers in history.”

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