Strong support for President Kennedy’s plan for assisting and improving public education, coupled with vigorous opposition to the use of Federal and state fund grants or loans to private and parochial educational institutions, was voiced here tonight in a resolution adopted by the 72nd annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. The convention went on record also as opposed to the granting of government funds to individual students attending private or denominational schools.
The convention’s statement of policy on education was presented by Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer, of Larchmont, chairman of the organization’s committee on Church and State. After adopting the resolution, the convention sent telegrams to Congressman Sam Ray-burn, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to Rep. Howard W. Smith, chairman of the House Rules Committee, protesting the bottling up in the committee of the President’s aid-to-education bill. A copy of the wire was sent also to the White House.
The resolution, adopted by the more than 500 Reform rabbis from all parts of the United States and Canada attending the convention, declared:
“The Central Conference has consistently fought for freedom of religion, and holds that religious liberty is best maintained through the separation of Church and State. We support the view of those who would confine Federal aid to those institutions responsible directly to public supervision. We declare that parents have every right to send their children to non-public schools but we oppose government funds for such schools. We, therefore, oppose the use of Federal or State funds to provide either grants or loans to private and parochial schools.”
REGNER WARNS AGAINST ‘DANGERS’ OF ‘OVER-ORGANIZATION’
Rabbi Sidney L. Regner, executive vice-president of the CCAR, reported tonight on the rabbinical body’s growth and problems. He told the assembled rabbis that their organization has grown by over 200 members over the past decade, although this “has not been due to any desire for bigness in itself.” He reported also that the Central Conference in the past year had distributed more than 100,000 prayer books, hymnals and other CCAR publications.
He warned, however, against the “dangers” of organization and over-organization. “We live in organization-minded times. American Jewish life finds expression in organizations. Reform Judaism follows this pattern, and therein lurks a danger. The danger is not that organizations come to speak for us. The danger is rather that the collective body, which is but the instrument, becomes the end and that the power of the organization becomes more important than the power of the idea. It is the values we espouse that must be our primary concern,” he said.
“It is only as the spiritual life of our people is deepened,” Rabbi Regner declared, “as their knowledge grows, as they bring to bear the teachings of our faith upon their own individual lives and upon the issues that confront us in the social order that we consider ourselves effective. As rabbis, our purpose is not to perfect an institution. It is to keep the glow of values we cherish alive in the world.”
Tomorrow, the convention will focus on the report of the CCAR’s Committee on Justice and Peace, and in the evening will hear an address by a former Israel Ambassador to the United States, Eliahu Elath.
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