The Dallas Host Committee for the Republican national convention removed the New Testament bible from the welcome kits it planned to give the some 5,000 delegates and alternates to the convention opening there August 20, after the American Jewish Committee lodged a complaint, an AJC representative said today.
Howard Kohr, the AJC’s assistant Washington representative, said that Hyman Bookbinder, the organization’s Washington representative, complained to the White House last week after the AJC’s Dallas chapter informed the Washington office of plans to include the New Testament as part of various material in the information kits.
Bookbinder was so troubled by this that he asked an assistant to President Reagan to investigate. “All this is part of a general effort to formally Christianize America, and that’s not what our founding fathers wanted this country to be,” Bookbinder said.
Soon after, Fred Meyer, chairman of the Host Committee, announced that the New Testament would not be in the kits.
Kohr said the AJCommittee found it objectionable that any major political party would include a version of the bible, such as the New Testament, in its official material.
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.
