American Jews are being asked to take a strong public stand on a wide variety of pressing domestic issues, among them welfare reform, civil rights enforcement, the right of dissent and opposition to government harassment of dissenters, improvement of police and criminal justice processes, strict separation of church and state and measures to reverse the deterioration of the cities. These and other subjects are dealt with in the annual Joint Program Plan for Jewish Community Relations, 1971-72 prepared by the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council in consultation with its nine national organizations and 90 local community relations councils. According to NCRAC executive vice-chairman Isaiah Minkoff, the plan, advisory but not binding on the participating organizations, will be widely reflected in their separate activities which will be coordinated for maximum timeliness and impact.
On the international scene, the two major objectives of the program are support for continued United States military and economic assistance to Israel and official US governmental intervention on behalf of just treatment and freedom to emigrate for Soviet Jews. The program criticizes the administration for its “retreat” on civil rights and lack of executive leadership that has “vitiated” civil rights enforcement while the administration’s fiscal and economic policies have further depressed the condition of the same minority groups that are the victims of unequal opportunity. The program supports federal welfare reform and calls for improvement by the Senate on the measures passed last spring by the House.
The NCRAC program urges higher benefits to be “not less than the government-defined poverty level,” no reduction of benefits now provided by the states, prevailing wages on jobs that welfare recipients may be required to take, exemption from such requirements of mothers of young children and special services, including day care centers for working mothers. The Jewish organizations oppose the administration’s revenue sharing plan which they believe would undercut efficiency and standards of many services as federal supervision is withdrawn, the program guide asserts. It advocates instead that the federal government assume entirely, or in larger share, the costs of welfare, medical care and education, thus releasing local revenues for other necessary purposes.
OPPOSES CIVIL VIOLENCE
The program guide observes that American cities are doomed to deterioration and decay unless the federal government comes to their aid and the suburbs assume their fair share of concern for the welfare of the metropolitan areas of which they are part. While assessing civil liberties as “perhaps less restricted than at any previous time so marked by controversy and conflict as the present,” the Jewish groups expressed “anxiety” about what they see as a tendency toward repression of dissent. Among the measures they opposed were government demands for disclosure of sources of information by news media, “eavesdropping” without court order, the gathering and computerization of personal information by government agencies, pre-trial detention, police surveillance of legitimate gatherings and other events and “dangerously expanded” no-knock laws.
The organizations defended as “acceptable” acts of non-violent civil disobedience “with willingness to accept legal penalties” but warned that violence was “inherently antiethical to democracy” and only triggered repressive measures against all forms of dissent. The program guide noted that with the exception of the Orthodox minority among the NCRAC constituents, all Jewish organizations and community councils supported the US Supreme Court’s decision of last June 28 declaring public aid to parochial schools unconstitutional. The guide stated that the organizations would vigorously oppose education vouchers, tuition grants or other forms of financial aid that includes religiously affiliated schools. They will also increase their efforts to increase general public awareness of the needs of the public schools and of the “grave dangers to public education, to religion and to the separation principle” posed by any form of state aid to parochial education, the program guide said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
