New York Board of Rabbis Endorses Holding of Interfaith Dialogues

Resolutions dealing with many vital international and domestic subjects–including a call for a four-power guarantee of Israel’s borders, a pledge to undertake an educational campaign to aid persecuted Russian Jewry, broader support of Jewish education in this country, and to liberalize the divorce laws in the State of New York — were adopted here last night at the 85th annual meeting of the New York Board of Rabbis.

The Board, which includes Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis of New York City and vicinity, also endorsed the extension of interfaith dialogues; It elected Rabbi Edward T. Candrow, spiritual leader of Temple Beth El, Cedarhurst, Long Island, N.Y. as president.

Concerning the Middle East, the rabbis also called on the United States to supply Israel directly with “arms necessary to deter aggression,” and endorsed a bill pending in Congress that “would prevent the Arab boycott apparatus from investigating the procedures of American businesses to the detriment of the State of Israel.”

Regarding the situation of the Jews in the USSR, the Board noted that “the plight of the 3,000,000 Jews in the Soviet Union continues to command the urgent and high-priority attention of the New York Board of Rabbis,” and pledged to work toward amelioration of that situation alongside “all other Jewish organizations associated in the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry.”

The Board also urged the United States Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Genocide; declared itself opposed to any religious programs, Christian or Jewish, in public schools; viewed “with concern” the growth of ultra right-wing groups in the United States; pledged rabbinical aid to the civil rights struggle in the United States; and called for closer cooperation between rabbis and the Jewish Education Committee of New York.