The aggressive campaign to “call the continent to Christ” by the Christian evangelical group known as Key 73 was called a threat to the concept of American pluralism by Rabbi James A. Rudin of New York, assistant director of the Interreligious Affairs Department of the American Jewish Committee, Addressing 1300 high school teen-agers at the 22nd annual convention of the United Synagogue Youth last week. Rabbi Rudin said:
“The Key 73 movement poses a threat and a challenge to the American Jewish community, especially its young men and women. If evangelical Christianity were to become de facto American religion, Jews and Judaism would be seen as less than equal within the American community, A Christian missionary movement based upon the negation and denigration of Judaism as a living faith, as a complete religion, can destroy the very existence of the Jewish people.”
Although he didn’t mention a recent B’nai B’rith Hillel survey by name, which said that conversion efforts were making little progress among Jews on the nation’s campuses. Rabbi Rudin differed when he said that “our reports indicate widespread activity around the country.”
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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.
