More than 1700 delegates to the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America convention assembled here tonight, heard their president, Mrs. Henry N. Rapaport, plead for a “reaffirmation of our traditional strengths” and an “acceptance of the validity of the universal ethic given by our prophet Moses.” She said that societies which accepted that validity have survived, and those which did not, fell apart and disappeared.
Mrs. Rapaport expressed apprehension over the moral failures of our society, voiced concern over the possibilities of erosion of Jewish values, but remained essentially optimistic in her assessment of the future of Jewish life. Delegates to the five-day convention of the women’s arm of the Conservative Movement in Judaism are from all parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Israel.
Mrs. Rapaport lauded the Jewish way of life, and said that “we are as strong as our hold on our values.” She spelled out those values as encompassing a tradition for Kiddushin (holiness), a strong and loyal Jewish family life, a concern for others, a respect for learning, and implanting these precepts in children, thus giving them an authentic Jewish family life.
Dealing with hardcore issues which have divided Americans of all faiths, Mrs. Rapaport said that “we must have an understanding of our young people, confused by a chaotic society, who have fled to the pseudo-comfort of drugs, or who have been brutalized by exposure to the callous killings which flood our consciousness, and of the young men who chose to leave their country, rather than fight a war they could not in conscience support.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
