misery and despair,” the report recommends.
The danger of dictatorship in the United States, the report says, has greatly lessened through the decision of the Supreme Court killing the NRA. On the other hand, the danger of Communism and Fascism is growing greater through activities of well-organized groups and of reactionary organizations which are engaged in the name of patriotism in unpatriotic efforts to limit American liberties.
“We urge that an investigation he undertaken by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee concerning the dangers which threaten us. Such an investigation would uncover the source of the un-American propaganda activities against the established rights of the workers and the farmers,” the Social Justice report states.
The Commission also advocates the development of projects now under the government work relief program, which will not depress the wage structure and which will at the same time give proper employment to young men and women who can be saved from demoralization and delinquency through vocational education and employment.
SEEKS LABOR PROTECTION
The Commission also urges that a Federal law be passed setting up an agency to assure labor the right to organize and to bargain collectively as they must be protected against wrongs and the danger of economic oppression.
“We take our stand without reservation and compromise at the side of the workers in America,” the report says.
Rabbi Max C. Currick of Erie, Pa., chairman of the Committee for International Peace, speaking on the international armament race, expressed the fear that the United States by all signs will undoubtedly be embroiled in the next war unless public opinion is sufficiently aroused in this country to prevent that eventuality.
“All peace lovers must be united so that the President and Congress shall realize the extent and the depth of the anti-war sentiment in the nation,” Rabbi Currick said.
BACKS ARMS EMBARGO
Rabbi Currick declared that one sure way of keeping out of war is to join the collective system of the world with the object of abolishing war through the League of Nations. He urged support of the measure now before Congress to put an embargo on munitions.
The Committee on International Peace recommended that the Conference approve the Ludlow Amendment to the Constitution. The recommendation was also made to take the following attitude towards Germany:
“The Reich forms at the present time the greatest menace to peace in the Western World. We believe that while it is our duty to extend relief to the victims of Nazi cruelty and to agitate for the restoration of their human and citizenship rights, it is in the interest of world peace that our government should use its good offices to help restore the political and economic equality of the oppressed national minorities in Germany.”
The report of the International Peace Committee reaffirms the previous stand of the Central Conference of American Rabbis advocating adherence to the World Court and joining the League of Nations.
SYMPOSIUM ON PLATFORM
Opening a symposium on the “Revaluation of Reform Judaism,” which is the main theme of discussion at the convention, Dr. David Philipson of Cincinnati, gave an account of the conditions in American Judaism in the first half of the 1880’s that led to the convening of the historic “Pittsburgh Conference” of 1885, at which was adopted the Platform of Reform Judaism in America, which has been adhered to with few exceptions ever since its adoption fifty years ago.
Reviewing the controversy between the Orthodox or Conservative and Reform Jewish leaders of that day, Dr. Philipson narrated the events which led to the actual convening of the Pittsburgh Conference, the story of the drafting of the Pittsburgh Platform, and a description of the repercussions in the Jewish religious world of that day.
Dr. Philipson, dean of American Rabbis, is the sole surviving member of the Committee which drew up the platform. Only one other person who participated in that conference—Dr. Samuel Sale of St. Louis—survives. Dr. Philipson was the youngest Rabbi at that historic meeting, and acted as secretary of the Conference.
In closing his presentation, Dr. Philipson urged the rabbis to make any changes in the Pittsburgh Platform, if necessary, “with deliberation and with a deep consciousness of our responsibility as the heirs of a great religious liberal tradition and as the instruments of a continuing revelation of Gods’ truth with the passing of time.”
“Let us beware lest we listen to the siren voices of sentimental reactionism or the advocacy of a political program,” he concluded.
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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.
