Mrs. Halprin Addresses Hadassah Conference on New Zionist Policy

Mrs. Rose L. Halprin, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said here today that the World Zionist movement had set itself the task of reaching those Jews in free societies who were denying their Jewishness “by their apathy and their ignorance.”

A former president of Hadassah, Mrs. Halprin told more than 300 Hadassah leaders at the organization’s annual Midwinter Conference here, that such apathy and ignorance was “destroying Judaism from within.” She added that the focussing by the 26th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem in January on problems of Jewish communities outside of Israel “signifies that the Zionistmovement must now penetrate into the field of communal activity” and that it must lend its strength to breaking assimilation.

She said such a program must include Jewish education in depth, a commitment to Jewish values, a reaching out to Jewish youth and contact with Jewish writers, intellectuals and other molders of opinion. The program would mean “Jewishness in the home as a starting point for Jewish commitment,” she said, adding that Jewish life throughout the world had common concerns “and awareness of a common danger–assimilation.”

Dr. Miriam K. Freund, Hadassah Zionist Affairs Committee chairman and past president, said assimilation was “the lack of Jewish identification and commitment.” Calling the Zionist movement “the liberation movement of the Jewish people,” she said the movement “must seek to meet the challenges of our time and the means of being a guiding force in strengthening Jewish life throughout the world.”