A group of leading Protestants and Roman Catholics here, all engaged in various fields of religion and education, sent telegrams last night to the leaders of the major world powers, as well as to religious leaders, urging them “not to stand idly by” while the State of Israel is threatened with destruction.
The wires were sent, among others, to Soviet Russia’s Premier Alexei N. Kosygin; President Johnson; Canada’s Premier Lester B. Pearson; French President Charles de Gaulle; British Prime Minister Harold Wilson; United Nations Secretary-General U Thant; Pope Paul VI; the Archbishop of Canterbury; and the leaders of the World Council of Churches, the Canadian Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches in the United States.
“Once before in this century,” the Christian message stated, “the leader of a nation proclaimed the sin of destroying the Jews. The world did not believe him. The world stood by. Again, the leader of a nation has proclaimed the aim of destroying Jews — this time the State of Israel. Let us not believe that the unbelievable cannot happen again. This time, let us not stand by. The undersigned speak as Christians who remember with anguish the Nazi holocaust and are filled with deep apprehension about the survival of the State of Israel.”
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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.
