Prominent Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders Joined forces today in the establishment of an interfaith organization devoted to helping Soviet Jewry regain full religious freedom throughout the Soviet Union. To be known as the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, the new group will seek to marshal the moral resources of the three faiths to overcome the denial of Justice to Russia’s 3,000,000 Jews.
Among the officers elected to head the new Foundation are: Rabbi Arthur Schneier, of Congregation Zichron Ephraim, New York, president; Dr. Harold A. Bosley, minister of Christ Church Methodist, vice-president; Rev. Thurston M. Davis, a Jesuit and editor-in-chief of America, vice-president; and former Rep. Francis E. Dorn, of Brooklyn, secretary-treasurer.
The Foundation is the outgrowth of the “Appeal of Conscience” manifesto announced earlier this year over the signatures of many outstanding American leaders in theology, education, politics, writing and related areas. Within the next two weeks, it was said, a second appeal will be issued, calling on the Soviet Government to cease discriminating against its Jewish citizens and to restore to them full religious rights and guarantees.
In the statement issued today, the leaders of the new Foundation expressed the hope “that this interfaith movement will arouse the moral conscience of the world in behalf of Soviet Jewry and, thereby, mobilize the sentiments of the peoples of the universe for Justice, righteousness and liberty.”
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