The world’s major religions have failed to cope with the problem facing humanity as a result of the threat of nuclear war, according to warnings voiced by leaders of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. The criticism against all the religions was expressed at a dinner here honoring Professor Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, on his 80th birthday.
Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld, spiritual leader of the Fairmont Temple in Cleveland, warned that “the great religions of the world are dying, although there are no visible death throes.” Religion, he maintained, “is simply no longer an effective force in our society, for it is no longer the measure by which a culture evaluates itself.”
Another of the principal speakers at the dinner, last night, honoring Professor Kaplan, was Rabbi Iral. Eisenstein, president of the foundation. He declared that in the face of what he described as “the virtual monopoly of Orthodox synagogues in Israel,” and “in spite of the fanatical attacks of those who hold non-Orthodox views there, an increasing number of Israelis are seeking an interpretation of Jewish religion more in consonance with modern thought.”
Rabbi Jack J. Cohen, of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, declared that Reconstructionism was “the first religiously oriented philosophy of Judaism to integrate Zionism into an organic and democratic theory of the Jewish people.”
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