Negro-Jewish Relations Discussed at Convention of Jewish Congress

Negro-Jewish relations were discussed here today at the national biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress, with Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld, of Cleveland, asserting that recent incidents of Negro anti-Semitism have brought about a "Jewish backlash." He criticized what he called "the new isolationists in Jewish life" who, he claimed, were part of this "backlash."

He said there was a "new preoccupation with Negro anti-Semitism" among Jewish academicians who have posed a "false dichotomy between the preservation of Judaism and the application of Jewish values to contemporary issues." "These forces tell us to ignore the world in order to survive as Jews," Rabbi Lelyveld declared, "but in doing so they ignore the whole point of Jewish survival. For what is the meaning of our millennia of dedication if it is not ‘to improve the world into the kingdom of the Almighty?’"

Rabbi Lelyveld, a civil rights volunteer who was assaulted by segregationists in Mississippi in 1964, said: "It is a tribute to our heritage of compassion that we are ashamed of anti-Negro sentiments that do exist among Jews and rarely permit them a public airing. I do not serve the cause of Negro emancipation because I expect the Negro to love me in return. The command to remember the stranger and the oppressed is unconditional."

The Cleveland rabbi said it was "inevitable" that a "Jewish backlash" would develop in view of the confrontation between Negroes and Jews in low income areas and the conflict of interests between the two communities in problems of education and allied concerns. This reaction, he said, "manifests itself in gratuitous advice to Jewish organizations to tend to their Jewish knitting."

Rather than withdraw from full participation in the Negroes’ struggle, Rabbi Lelyveld said, "we must demand more of ourselves. Our reason for being is not to maintain in ghetto-like separateness a Naturei Karta stance, but to take the obligations made on us by our covenant and apply them to today’s world."

Howard M. Squadron, convention co-chairman, cited the work of the American Jewish Congress in establishing with the Urban League an interracial council for business opportunity as one way of helping translate the promise of equality into jobs and genuine economic opportunity.