Non-affiliation with Israeli Parties Stressed at Hadassah Convention

“All Jews have a responsibility for Israel,” Mrs. Siegfried Kramarsky, national president of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization of America, today told the 2,000 delegates to Hadassah’s 48th national convention, which gathered for a four-day assembly here yesterday.

On the other hand, Mrs. Kramarsky asserted in her presidential address, “it is our belief that the politics of Israel is the business of the citizens of Israel. Hadassah, as a Zionist organization, will not affiliate itself with any group which represents a political party in Israel.”

“But, inasmuch as Israel is also the heart of the Jewish people,” she asserted, “we hope that the day will come when it will be a normal part of Jewish life for a proportion of each generation of free Jews to go to Israel, to participate in shaping the character of this land whose history and destiny is eternally linked with that of the whole of Jewish life.”

Referring to outbursts of anti-Semitism in Argentina, Guatemala and Uruguay, the recent anti-Jewish activities among “lunatic groups” in Britain, and the continuing anti-Jewish discriminations in the Soviet Union, Mrs. Kramarsky stated: “We are profoundly disturbed by manifestations of intolerance and bigotry wherever they appear. Recent demonstrations of anti-Semitism in many countries have caused us the deepest anxiety. We do not understand how a world which has known the unspeakable tragedy, humiliation and degradation of the Hitler era can ever again be silent before the menace of anti-Semitism.”

MRS. HALPRIN STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF JEWISH EDUCATION

At another session, Mrs. Samuel W. Halprin, former national president of Hadassah and now chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, told the Hadassah delegates that there is a rising tide of interest in Jewish education not only in the United States but in all countries of the world where Jews are free to pursue Jewish life. “This,” she noted, “did not exist a decade ago.” Mrs. Halprin last week returned from meetings on Jewish education held in Jerusalem. The meetings were attended by delegates from 32 countries.

“Speaking particularly of the United States, I believe firmly that only a literate Jew–aware of his background, of the ethics of his fathers, of the meaning of prophetic teachings–can make his best contribution to American culture and civilization,” she said. “To cast off what lies at the base of western civilization–what is fundamental to Judeo-Christian ethics–is to show a wanton disregard of a rich heritage and to deny its patrimony to our younger generation.”

Mrs. Halprin stressed that Jewish education “must encompass the home, the community and the religious schools. In the final analysis, the school can only introduce; it is the home that must follow through. It is the school that can set forth concepts and precepts; it is the home that their translation from theory into practice must take place.

“Nothing, I think, can be more dangerous for us than to use thousands of words about education without a plan and program in mind. For to confuse rhetoric for fact may well set back the cause of Jewish education instead of advancing it,” she declared. She said that two “apparently contradictory and yet developing” trends have been apparent in the Jewish communities everywhere.

“On the one hand, there is a return to the synagogue; there is recognition by parents of the fact that their children must be rooted in Jewish life; that failure to understand and appreciate Judaism leads to inner conflicts, which so beset this generation. On the other hand, there is a movement toward assimilation and a forfeiture of connection with the Jewish people. Within Jewish education rests the guarantee that the assimilatory process will be slowed and that knowledge will restore spiritual equilibrium and set the Jew at greater ease within his environment.”

$11,360,415 RAISED BY HADASSAH DURING LAST 12 MONTHS

Mrs. Mortimer Jacobson, national treasurer of Hadassah, reported that in the last 12 months, Hadassah raised $11,360,415 for its projects in Israel and its work in the United States. This, she said, represents the largest collection in the 50-year history of the organization. Last year’s Hadassah budget was $9,888,500.

Mrs. Abraham Tulin, national chairman of Hadassah’s Medical Center committee, said that the $1,000,000 Mother-and-Child Pavilion–part of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem–will be opened early in 1963, to “provide a complete modern diagnostic, consultation and teaching service for complicated and difficult maternity problems.” She said that the pavilion will be the major center in Israel for referrals of difficult problems of childbirth and maternal care.

Dr. Kalman J. Mann, director general of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel, told the convention that there will be an increase in coronary thrombosis, arteriosclerosis and diabetes in Israel within the next 20 years. “This,” he said, “will be due to the impact of the western way of life and the stresses of western civilization in Israel upon its Jewish immigrants from Oriental countries.” Dr. Mann reported that in order to cope with this serious problem, a bi-continental research project has been initiated by the Hadassah Medical Organization in partnership with the U.S. National Institute of Health for “the evaluation of the genetic and environmental factors that relate to these diseases.”