Royal G. Kaplan, of this city, was unanimously elected president of the newly-formed Midwest Region of the United Synagogue of America at the group’s meeting here. The new region encompasses 32 congregations in eight states.
Speakers at the parley included Dr. Albert I. Gordon, executive director of the United Synagogue, who warned that the preservation and “continued growth of Conservative Judaism required new thought and new ideas on the part of both laymen and rabbis.” Dr. Gordon declared that “we are not preparing our children for the synagogue, nor are we preparing them for Israel, nor are we preparing them for Jewish life.”
Asserting that Judaism had already accepted “many new customs in accordance with changed conditions in America,” Rabbi Gordon said that the process of change required “sluffing off” of certain customs and ceremonies but warned that “Conservative Judaism would cease to exist if the sluffing off continued on the same vast, chaotic and individualist scale as it has in recent years.”
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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.
