Rabbi Vainstein Says Israel’s, Diaspora Jewry’s Fate Insolubly Linked

Rabbi Dr. Jacob Vainstein, president of the Religious Council of Jerusalem, told the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America over the weekend that “Israel and diaspora Jewry are two arms of one and the same body whose fate is insolubly bound together.” Israel’s “unique contribution” is “its religious and spiritual heritage.” and “the basis of the unity of its people the world over is Torah and the special Judaic way of life,” Rabbi Vainstein observed to the 2,000 delegates to the UOJCA’s five-day convention, which ended yesterday. “The national and religious elements in the new are inseparable, and this is the distinctive mark that makes Medinath Israel a Jewish State,” he continued. Dr. Vainstein, the founder of the Department of Torah Education of the Jewish Agency in Israel and a member of the World Executive of the Religious Zionist Movement, urged Jewish families to “encourage their college children to come to Israel and to examine the possibilities of building their future there.” He said, “The golah (diaspora), with is assimilationist pressures and diverse foreign streams of thinking, has thrown masses of Jewish young people into total confusion, because they lack Jewish roots and an understanding of the message of Judaism in a nihilistic world society.”

Rabbi Vainstein called on American Jewry to “invest a maximum effort in the Jewish education of their young and set the correct example for them” Rabbi Vainstein, 54, is chairman of the Ramot Shapira Youth Institute scheduled for an opening next March in Jerusalem. In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he observed that Jewish youth, like non-Jewish youth, were attracted to the New Left because it appears to be more relevant to today’s society than the assimilationism and ritualism of their parents. Instead of categorically condemning youngsters, he went on, Jewish adults and leaders should offer them “the kind of Judaism that can stabilize the character of the youth.” The UOJCA’s 72nd biennial convention approved the creation of a commission to encourage leadership potential in college-age youth–a decision made after Lawrence A, Kobrin, a vice president, said the Union was hypocritical in “encouraging young people to idealism and communal service and then excluding them from decision-making posts.” The commission–believed to be a first for a national religious organization–will hold six-month leadership classes for collegians. Rabbi Samson R. Weiss, UOJCA executive vice president, recommended to Jewish federations and welfare funds that they start giving “substantial and meaningful support to Jewish education” instead of concentrating on nursing and family services, hospitals and old-age homes.