Synagogue Council of America Discusses Elimination of Postwar Anti-semitism

Elimination of postwar anti-Semitism, cooperation between all religious forces for the establishment of a just social order, and the deepening of moral and religious roots at home and abroad, were the principal questions discussed here at a conference of the Synagogue Council of America held yesterday at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria, at which the new administration, headed by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, took office.

Rabbi Israel Goldstein, the retiring president of the Council, called anti-Semitism social leprosy and said that the treatment of the Jew has become the barometer of civilization. “As the former Nazi satellites breakaway from the master gangster, one of their first acts is to make a show of repentance by rescinding their official anti-Semitism,” he stated. “It remains to be seen how genuine is the repentance. Yet the fact that it is deemed expedient to disavow anti-Semitism in order to be included in decent company is itself worth noting. The same standards should be applied in our domestic scene.”

Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, the incoming president, reminded the delegates that most of the religious institutions of European Jewry have been destroyed and that it devolves upon American Israel to holp rebuild them. He called for a strengthening of our religious forces at home. Rabbi Ahron Opher, assistant to the president, reviewed the achievements of the Council in the past year.

The Synagogue Council of America is the representative body of all religious branches of American Jewry, rabbinical and congregational. Its delegates are chosen by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbinical Assembly of America, Rabbinical Council of America, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, and the United Synagogue of America.