Ncrac’s Chairman Opposes Jewish Withdrawal from Involvement in Nation’s Problems

The chairman of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council yesterday termed as a “return to the marginal Jew” those concepts of Jewish survival which propose that Jewish organizations restrict themselves solely to Jewish education, culture, worship and other “uniquely Jewish purpose” and withdraw from involvement in the nation’s racial and social problems. Criticizing individuals who favor such “isolating” brands, Jordan C. Band of Cleveland, in an address commemorating the NCRAC’s 25th anniversary, warned that this process could only weaken the “democratic pluralism” of American society on which, he said, the status and security of Jewish life depends.

In a speech to some 250 representative of the NCRAC’s nine national and 82 local organizations holding their annual conference here, Mr. Band urged his listeners to combat a trend among Jews who are “turning inward” and who “may even look upon withdrawal from the great social issues of American life, to devote their energies solely to ‘taking care of our own,’ as a kind of program for Jewish action in these times.” He recalled that a generation ago, “it was considered deplorable that the Jew was a marginal man, living a kind of schizoid existence, partly in the American culture, partly in a culture essentially alien to America.” This “marginality” created “Jewish hang-ups of alleged Jewish inadequacies and maladjustments,” he said. “Now, it appears, we are being summoned to marginality as a Jewish virtue.”

Mr. Band, who was reelected to a third one-year term argued that American Jews have a parochial interest in seeking an end to “the economic, social and political pathology that festers within the cities.” but that “too many Jews” share in white community attitudes of “indifference toward the war on poverty and antagonisms toward Negro demands. Too many Jews have reacted emotionally with an admixture of frustration, anger and fear,” he declared. The result, he added, has been “alarming defections” in the Jewish community from the nation’s struggle toward equality.

Mr. Band said that the “proponents of withdrawal” differ among themselves on an analysis, rationalization and program, although “their ideas converge in a single thrust,” He saw them as “fearful men of little faith, without confidence in the bonds of Jewish unity and mistrustful without cause of the freedoms of American democratic pluralism. Dropping out may be feasible for individuals, it is not for groups.” he said. “We Jews deceive ourselves if we think that the struggle is someone else’s and not ours.” Withdrawal rather than involvement would make the Jewish community “invisible but only more conspicuous,” he said.

The NCRAC celebrated its growth and expanding areas of activity in the 25 years since it was established in this city. The affair was also a tribute to Isaiah Minkoff, NCRAC’s executive vice-chairman since its inception and the guiding force in its development. Mr. Minkoff attributed the success of NCRAC, which began with four national groups and 14 local community councils, to its “essentially consultative and coordinating role. The constituent agencies themselves are always the sole arbiters of their respective positions, policies and programs,” he said. A significant development in NCRAC, unlike other Jewish “roof organizations” that withered or collapsed, is the inclusion of local community participation, Mr. Minkoff said.

The NCRAC today defended the use of non-violent civil disobedience “to expose injustice and provoke change” but urged that it be invoked only as a last resort. The conference flatly condemned “confrontation by the use or threat of force or violence.” The delegates also castigated “Jewish extremist groups” that seek to justify “violent and coercive tactics in what they deem to be defense of Jewish security and Jewish interests.” This criticism was apparently directed at–but did not name–the Jewish Defense League in New York.

Denouncing vigilante tactics, NCRAC declared that “resort to para-military or any organized private use of force, threat of force, intimidation or coercion (is) destructive of public order and injurious to civil liberties.” The NCRAC statement said that such actions should not be “confused” with the activities of groups that, in cooperation with police, patrol areas in which the incidents of violence is high. “Our condemnation is directed to those who take the law into their own hands,” the statement declared.

In assessing the “national mood,” the NCRAC reported that “defenders of civil liberties principles find themselves increasingly caught between the provocateurs of anarchy and the advocates of vigilantism and repression. Paradoxically, however, the nation has been more tolerant of dissent up to now than in any previous wartime period; and the capacity of our system to absorb and withstand abrasive difference has perhaps never been more severely tested.”

In another policy action, NCRAC warned of a “spreading pattern” of state aid to church-related schools and other continuing “circumventions” of the Constitutional separation of church and state. It reaffirmed, with one dissent, its opposition to “all forms” of public assistance to parochial and private education. The dissenting group was the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America which has endorsed public aid to sectarian schools on the grounds that the assistance is essential to the pupil and not to the religious group involved.