In an unprecedented step, the rabbinic and lay leaders of Conservative, Orthodox and Reform Judaism in the U.S. joined last night in a plea to President Johnson to resist pressures for escalating the war in Viet Nam if the Administration’s current peace offensive should fail.
The action came in a policy statement issued by the Synagogue Council of America, coordinating agency for six congregational and rabbinical bodies representing over 3,500,000 American Jews. The appeal to President Johnson marked the first time that the entire Jewish religious community has taken a position on an international issue going beyond immediate Jewish concern.
Rabbi Seymour J. Cohen of Chicago, president of the Council, announced that the Synagogue Council would convene a “Conference on Judaism and World Peace” in New York on February 22. He said the meeting would bring together representative spokesmen of the Jewish religious community for a discussion of “the relevance of Jewish religious tradition to the major problem of our age, world peace.”
In addition to Rabbi Cohen, the policy statement of the Synagogue Council was signed by: Rabbi Jacob J. Weinstein, president, Central Conference of American Rabbis; Rabbi Max J. Routtenberg, president, Rabbinical Assembly; Rabbi Israel Miller, president, Rabbinical Council of America; Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, president, Union of American Hebrew Congregations; Moses I. Feuerstein, president, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; Henry N. Rapaport, president, United Synagogue of America.
The Synagogue Council statement voiced “deep concern” that if the present halt in the bombing of North Viet Nam failed to elicit a positive response from Hanoi, “discouragement and frustration might alter the present character of the conflict as a limited war for limited goals. The danger of new pressures for unlimited escalation of the war resulting from impatience and disappointment is grave indeed,” the Jewish leaders cautioned. Such an escalation would not only fail to achieve our goals; it would also ultimately involve the world in a war of mutual destruction.”
“Our religious conscience compels us to exert every influence so that the action in Viet Nam can be moved from the battlefield to the negotiating table,” the Synagogue Council statement said.” We recognize that those who see the need for checking Communist subversion by military means are no less dedicated to the cause of a just world peace than those who believe the United States must cease hostilities in Viet Nam. We do believe, however, that the imperatives of our religious commitments call for the recommendations we prayerfully put forward and commend to the attention of our synagogues throughout the land.”
The Synagogue Council commended President Johnson’s action in baiting the bombing of Viet Nam, declaring: “It serves as a convincing demonstration that despite pressures from some quarters for a military solution to the problem, the purpose of our military effort in Viet Nam remains one that is aimed at speeding an honorable settlement. It is also a convincing demonstration of the integrity of President Johnson’s public expressions of our willingness to negotiate unconditionally.”
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