President Reagan, in accepting a controversial award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ) for “courageous leadership in government, civic and humanitarian affairs,” denounced the “obscenity of anti-Semitism and racism” and at the same time reaffirmed the United States’ “unshakable” commitment to Israel.
“In the Middle East in particular, a strong credible America remains the best guarantor of Israel’s integrity and survival as a free nation,” Reagan told the more than 1,000 people attending a black tie dinner at the New York Hilton Hotel here last night where he was presented with the NCCJ Charles Evans Hughes Award. The presentation of the award was contested by members of the NCCJ and non-members who object to Reagan’s domestic and foreign policies.
“A strong credible America is also an indespensible incentive for a peaceful resolution of differences between Israel and her neighbors. America has never flinched from its commitment to the State of Israel — a commitment which remains unshakable,” the President declared.
The President’s address also focused on “the rich diversity of our free, pluralistic society.” He said that while the final policy decisions are determined by Congress and the President, “every citizen and every citizen’s group is guaranteed the right to speak out — and must be encouraged to do so without fear of reprisal or defamation.”
AN ATTEMPT TO ALLAY CONCERN
Reagan’s speech appeared as an attempt to allay concern in the American Jewish community which had been disturbed by the charges of dual loyalty and the anti-Semitic overtones which surfaced during last year’s debate over the Administration’s plan to sell AWACS reconnaissance planes and other military hardware to Saudi Arabia.
“No group should be bullied into silence by racial or ethnic slurs, or the fear of them,” the President said. “The language of hate — the obscenity of anti-Semitism and racism — must have no part in the national dialogue.”
Reagan interspersed his remarks with several references to secular and religious leaders, including Anne Frank, a victim of the Holocaust, who, the President noted, wrote in July 1944: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”
MASSIVE DEMONSTRATION AGAINST REAGAN
While the President was inside receiving his award from the NCCJ, making him the fourth President to receive it, an estimated 10,000 people demonstrated outside the hotel on Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, choking rush hour traffic, singing, chanting and carrying banners protesting the Administration’s foreign policy actions in Central America and his proposed budget cuts.
Earlier in the day, just hours before Reagan arrived in New York, the New Jewish Agenda, a newly formed progressive organization which claims 2,000 members throughout the country, held a press conference with more than a dozen Christian and Jewish leaders protesting the presentation of the Hughes Award to the President.
Declaring that “it is directly contrary to humanitarian and religious values to cut essential social services … (for) a wasteful military budget,” the statement released by the organization and lay leaders continued: “As Christians and Jews, we condemn the Reagan policies of slashing spending for human needs, lavishing tax breaks on the very wealthy, starving education programs and creating widespread unemployment.”
At the same time, Rabbi Arnold Wolf, of the KAM Isaiah Temple in Chicago, protesting the award to Reagan, returned to the NCCJ the James Yard Brotherhood Award which he was given in 1962. “If Reagan is a humanitarian,” Wolfe declared, “I am not.”
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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.
