Orthodox Rabbis Urge Jewish Conference on State Aid to Religious Education

The head of the Rabbinical Council of America called today for a national conference between the opponents and proponents, within the Jewish community of government aid to religious education. Rabbi Pesach Z, Levovitz, president of the Orthodox group, told me closing session of its annual mid-winter conference here that such a conference should explore all aspects of the problem and “seek a mutually acceptable formula that will move the problem from debate and bitterness to harmony and implementation.” Rabbi Levovitz said that the confreres should include representatives of all segments of the Jewish community, those who conduct the religious educational system and such national defense agencies as the B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee.

The question of state aid to religious schools was a major election issue in New York, Pennsylvania and several other states last November and continues to be unresolved. Orthodox Jewish groups have Joined with Roman Catholics in supporting state aid to religious schools. The major Jewish defense and civil rights agencies and the Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism vigorously oppose it as a violation of the principle of separation of church and state.

The conference also urged the nation’s two major political parties and their potential presidential candidates not to permit pre-occupation with the Vietnam war to quash debate on other problems of American life “in this turbulent period through which we are passing.”

Rabbi Israel Klavan, Council executive vice president, listed these problems as poverty, the urban crisis, civil rights, black power, the crisis in education, crime, the treatment of the aged and the alienation of the younger generation. Rabbi Zev Segal, first vice president of the Council, said it is “imperative to hold full scale debates” on these problems.