Orthodox Leader Calls for ‘revitalization’ of Jewish Life

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, told the 25th annual convention of the Orthodox body here today that there must be “a revitalization of Jewish life in the United States and Israel.” He said “It is highly deplorable that Israel and American-Jewish youth are more concerned with the attainment of physical happiness and pleasure than the rendition of much-needed assistance to the community in terms of teaching, chaplaincy service and the setting up of schools of learning in remote areas.”

Rabbi Rackman appealed to graduates of Yeshivoth, schools of Jewish education, and rabbinic seminaries to “forsake New York and Tel Aviv as their first occupational goal and to gravitate to those obscure and out-of-way cities and villages, both in the United States and in Israel, which are in desperate need of the pioneering zeal of men of intellectual stature. Their sacrificial part in the vitally necessary task of Torah-building in these Jewishly desolate spots will be most helpful in assuring the growth and progress and development of Jewry throughout the world.”

Rabbi Rackman urged Israeli youth “to rededicate itself to the principle of Torah and historic-Judaism. This youth,” he said, “will then be a model for all other youthful Jewish groupings in the United States and elsewhere. We must help to bring the people of Israel back to the commitment and program of Torah.”

Rabbi Rackman said it was urgent that President Eisenhower summon a “moral mobilization conference of leading American educators, philosophers and religious leaders for the purpose of awakening the American public to the dangers confronting the United States on a universal scale.”