Orthodox Rabbis Urge Intermarried Jewish Leaders Be Ousted from Offices

The Rabbinical Council of America, the association of Orthodox rabbis, announced today a policy aimed at “the elimination from leadership roles in Jewish public life of all those who marry out of their faith and rabbis who perform marriages between Jew and non-Jew.” Only Reform rabbis perform such marriages.

In line with that policy, Rabbi Louis Bernstein Council president, said the organization would oppose appointment to office of either lay or rabbinic leaders “who violate these rules in any of the organizations with which the Rabbinical Council is affiliated.”

These include the Synagogue Council of America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Chaplaincy Commission of the National Jewish Welfare Board, the Joint Advisory Committee of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council and the Rabbinic Advisory Council of the national United Jewish Appeal.

FIRST POLICY OF ITS KIND

Each of the six constituent agencies of the Synagogue Council of America–three rabbinic and three congregational–has veto power over all decisions of the SCA. A Council spokesman said the Rabbinical Council would apply that veto to any appointment of Jews to SCA posts who were married to non-Jews. In the other organizations, the spokesman said, the Council representatives will seek to have such a policy accepted as organization policy and the Rabbinical Council will pull its representatives out of the organization if the policy is rejected.

Rabbi Bernard Twersky, Council press officer, said the policy was the first of its kind to be adopted by a national Jewish organization and that the Rabbinical Council hoped it would have a major impact on organized Jewish life in this country: The policy was adopted unanimously by the organization’s Executive Board at a meeting held during the Council’s mid-winter conference two weeks ago in Monsey, N.Y.

Rabbi Bernstein said that Council member rabbis will carry out this policy in all Jewish organizations to which they belong as members, such as Jewish Federations, local rabbinical organizations and other agencies at local levels. In effect, this means, Rabbi Twersky said, that members will be ready to resign from such organizations and agencies if the policy is rejected by local groups.

THREATENED BY SUICIDAL TREND

Rabbi Bernstein said all Jewish groups should accept such guidelines, adding that “our call is directed to the secular community as it is to the various religious groups. It is addressed to our Federations, welfare funds and their boards for all are equally threatened by this suicidal trend.” He said all Jewish groups should, by adopting such a policy, “demonstrate their desire for positive and meaningful Jewish survival.”

The Council leader asserted that mixed marriages and assimilation “have become so grave a peril” to the survival of the American Jewish community and its growth, “that drastic measures must be taken.” Rabbi Bernstein stated that statistics indicated that “a substantial proportion of American Jews may be lost to us during this generation if this trend is not reversed.”

He added that in some parts of the United States, mixed marriage among Jews “is approaching a 50 percent rate, and even in areas of large Jewish concentration is alarmingly high.” Mixed marriage rates were highest on college campuses and among the “intellectual Jewish community,” Rabbi Bernstein said, adding that this “underscores the gravity of the problem.”