Six major national Jewish organizations joined today in urging Congress to pass a pending bill that would make illegal possession or use of dynamite a federal crime. They also called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch an investigation into the recent bombings of Jewish centers and places of worship in southern cities.
The American Jewish Congress, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A., Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and United Synagogue of America expressed their views in a statement made public here through their coordinating agency, the National Community Relations Advisory Council.
They called for prompt enactment of a bill introduced by Representative J. Carlton Loser of Tennessee. This would make it a federal crime to transport between states, or to possess any dynamite so transported, intended for unlawful use. It would create the presumption that a federal law has been violated by anyone found to have dynamite in his possession against local state law.
While maintaining that there is ample basis for federal intervention in the bombings that damaged Jewish centers and places of worship in Miami, Charlotte, Gastonia, Nashville and Jacksonville, and an attempted bombing in Birmingham, during the past several months, the Jewish groups support the Loser Bill as clarifying the authority of the Attorney General to intervene.
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