Two experts in Jewish community relations expressed differing opinions on the significance of recent Nazi Party activities in the United States. But both Dr. Seymour Weisman, consultant for the Jewish War Veterans, and Soul Sorrin, director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council, agreed that undue attention by the media had greatly inflated public awareness of the American Nazi Party.
They spoke during the four-day annual plenary session of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC) which continues here through tomorrow. Some 350 community leaders from all parts of the country are also discussing how to advance women’s rights, the Administration’s program for employment and welfare, organizing to help Soviet Jewry, how to keep religious observance out of public schools and how to combat missionaries.
On the American Nazis, Sorrin said they are deliberately seeking direct confrontation with Jewish communities, because the media turn out in strength to cover the expected clashes. The Nazis then gain publicity totally out of proportion to their numbers or their political significance, he said. In his opinion, the best course for the Jewish community was to deny the Nazis the confrontations which have led in the past to great publicity windfalls.
Sorrin said some community response had to be made. “In these conditions, Jewish community relations agencies can participate in the planning in order to channel the anger and emotion into constructive responses which may have educational value for the whole community, and which will not result in meaningless violence,” he said.
Weisman, disagreeing, referred to the situation in Skokie, Illinois, where the Nazis planned to march in full regalia through a neighborhood with a large population of Holocaust survivors. He noted that the Supreme Court had ruled that certain forms of speech are not protected by the First Amendment. “Shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater is an example of such unprotected expression,” he said. “I suggest that Nazis marching in full regalia in Skokie, with its 7000 Holocaust survivors, is analogous to the cry of ‘fire’ in the crowded theater. I share the determination to protest.”
At another session of the NJCRAC plenary, Naomi Levine, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, cautioned the American Jewish community against over-reacting to delays in the Middle East negotiations by joining in the media’s call on Israel to “give more.” Although the media had not always helped the process constructively, they had been and would continue to be essential auxiliary factors in the way the operation proceeds, Mrs. Levine said. “In some ways this media diplomacy may be all to the good, since the negotiating process has now become a media spectacular–an irreversible process from which the parties cannot retreat. In this kind of diplomacy, public opinion becomes the critical factor.”
She emphasized that the negotiations will be complex, lengthy, frustrating, and unpleasant at times. The Jewish community could best further the process by pointing out the issues, and continually bringing attention back to the context, rather than the controversies, of the process, she said.
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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.
