Orthodox Women’s Convention Criticizes U.S. Immigration Laws

The “national origins” basis of admissions to the United States in present immigration laws was assailed today as “discriminatory and a blot on America’s good name” at the 36th annual national convention of the Women’s Branch of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

Some 700 delegates urged in the resolution that the national origins basis should be eliminated when Congress reconvenes in January. In the resolution, the delegates also urged Congress to approve the request of the U.S. Attorney General, William P. Rogers for authorization to apply annually lapsed quotas from countries which do not use them to countries “where regrettably low quotas are each year quickly filled” because of “limitations” imposed by the national origins basis.

In another resolution, the delegates urged Congress to adopt a resolution to clarify the “vital religious distinction” in regard to Americans who do not observe Sunday as their day of rest. The delegates proposed such a Congressional resolution “as a guide to states in their handling” of Sunday closing laws. The requested resolution, the delegates said, should affirm the right “of those Americans who do not recognize Sunday as a religiously-based rest day to do so without economic penalty.”

In a resolution related to Jewish identification, the delegates took issue with the Government of the State of Israel over its recent decision to determine a definition as to “Who is a Jew” upon secular grounds. “This definition reaches far beyond boundaries of State into every Jewish community and home,” the resolution said. It added that such a decision “belongs to the religious cultural realm and should be exclusively within the scope of religious authority without the intervention of the temporal powers of Government.”