Squadron: Meeting Between Reagan and Six Jewish Leaders is a ‘deeply Disturbing Break in Jewish Unit

A White House meeting with President Reagan held by six Jewish leaders yesterday was criticized today by Howard Squadron, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, as “a deeply disturbing break in Jewish unity.”

Squadron declared in a statement: “The American Jewish community is past the point where we need or want ‘court Jews’ to speak for us to our government. The members of this self-appointed group — all but one of them active Republicans — were not authorized by the Jewish community to address the President. Such meetings do not help Israel and do not advance the cause of Jewish dignity and self-respect.”

The six Jewish leaders who met with Reagan, in what was described as an effort to improve the access of the Jewish community to the Administration, were: Max Fisher, of Detroit, chairman of the Republican National Jewish Coalition; Albert Spiegel, of Los Angeles; Gordon Zocks, of Columbus, Ohio; Richard Fox, of Philadelphia; and George Klein, of New York, all Republicans; and Lawrence Weinberg, of Beverly Hills, Calif., president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, (AIPAC) a Democrat.

JEWISH COMMUNITY ITSELT MUST DECIDE

In commenting further on the meeting, Squadron said; “From the beginning of this Administration, an effort has been made to by-pass the Presidents Conference so that the White House could designate its own ‘Jewish leaders.’ The effort was vigorously rejected by the organized Jewish community on the ground that it is not up to the President to select the Jews who represent the Jewish community. It is up to the Jewish community itself.”

The “most representative group in Jewish life today is the Conference of Presidents, the one body which by common consent speaks for American Jews on issues affecting the security of our fellow-Jews in Israel and other lands abroad,” Squadron said.

“The 34 national Jewish secular and religious organizations in the Presidents Conference represent the overwhelming majority of American Jews: Orthodox. Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform; Zionists and Jewish labor; war veterans and women’s groups and members of local Jewish community councils — the whole gamut of organized Jewry.”

Squadron noted that for nearly 25 years the Presidents Conference “has served as the acknowledged voice of American Jewry, recognized as such by Jerusalem and Washington, never hesitating to speak out in criticism of our government when criticism was warranted.”

‘WE HAVE NO … COURT JEWS’

Continuing Squadron said: “Of course, no President likes to hear criticism. That is why some self-appointed Jewish spokesmen, political supporters of the President, have tried to create a new group to serve as a buffer between the President and the organized Jewish community. American Jews reject this concept. We have no intermediaries, no ‘court Jews’ to represent us in the halls of government. We speak for ourselves.”

Surprise was expressed in some quarters at the participation in the meeting of Weinberg, who as president of AIPAC heads the Jewish community’s registered lobby in the nation’s capital.

Conspicuously absent from the delegation was Jacob Stein, long active in Republican circles, who recently resigned as White House liaison with the Jewish community. It was learned that Stein was not invited to join the delegation. When Stein left the Reagan Administration following the AWACS vote, it was first thought that he would be succeeded in his White House post by Albert Spiegel. Recent reports from Washington indicate, however, that the position itself has been dropped.