The Rabbinical Council of America issued a statement of principle yesterday which declared that the equal rights amendment for women passed by Congress and now making its way through various state legislatures “poses no threat to the practice of Judaism in the United States.” In a report to the RCA executive board, Rabbi Bernard L. Berzon, RCA president said “while we have not taken any position on whether or not this amendment is necessary, the implications which some have sought to draw that there were religious reasons why the amendment should not be passed must be rejected.”
This was an apparent reference to four Orthodox Jewish organizations who issued a statement April 3 opposing the amendment as inimical to “our rights to continue practicing our faith as we have done for the past three centuries in America.” This stance was immediately assailed by a leader of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations as “self-destructive and anachronistic” and “turning back to the Middle Ages.”
Judaism, Rabbi Berzon said, “was the first to recognize the status of the woman and to give her freedoms which were previously unknown and as such it has nothing to fear from this amendment.” To imply that this amendment will “affect our ability to practice our religious tenets freely, is to display a lack of faith in the American institution and the American way of life,” he stated.
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