Labor Leaders to Attend Washington Parley on Middle East Crisis

More than 50 American labor leaders will participate in discussions of the vital issues affecting peace in the Middle East, the security of Israel and United States policy in that area at an extraordinary conference on the Middle Eastern crisis taking place in Washington, next Tuesday and Wednesday, it was reported here today.

The trade union executives, representing both local and national labor groups, will be among the more than 400 delegates from 35 states attending the conference to be held at the Shoreham, Hotel. The conference was called by 16 major American Jewish organizations to deliberate the course of United States policy toward Israel and the entire Middle East in light of the new crisis precipitated by the Czech-Egyptian arms deal and Soviet Russia’s active intrusion in that area.

The labor leaders are attending the conference as delegates of the American Jewish Labor Committee and the American Trade Union Council for Labor Israel. Adolph Held president of the Jewish Labor Committee, and Joseph Breslaw, chairman of the Trade Union Council and a vice-president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, are among the heads of the 16 American Jewish organizations under whose names the conference is being called.

The competency of six Jewish organizations, chartered for religious and fraternal purposes to represent American Jews on issues involved in United States Middle Eastern policy, was challenged today by Clarence L. Coleman Jr., president of the American Council for Judaism in a letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Copies of the letter had been sent to each member of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Mr. Coleman announced. The six organizations were the B’nai B’rith; Jewish War Veterans of the United States National Community Relations Council; Union of American Hebrew Congregations; Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, and United Synagogue of America.