Hope that Temple Emanu-El, the largest Reform congregation in the world, would reconsider its “hasty” withdrawal from the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the association of Reform congregations, was expressed today by Irving Fane, chairman of the UAHC board of trustees.
Disclosure that a divided Temple board had voted, six to four, to pull the congregation out of the UAHC for the second time, touched off a series of exchanges between officials of the Temple and the UAHC. In disclosing the withdrawal action, Alfred Bachrach, congregation president, said the action was taken in protest about statements on United States participation in the Viet Nam war and other public issues by Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, UAHC president. Dr. Eisendrath has been one of the sharpest critics among a group of Reform rabbis opposing the American role in the war.
Mr. Bachrach said Dr. Eisendrath had assumed the role of spokesman for the entire Reform movement and stressed that such a position was “unauthorized and impossible.” Louis Broido, a board member of Temple Emanu-El, said that a “bare quorum” of the board’s 21 members attended the April 25 meeting at which the withdrawal decision was made. He said he and other opponents of the withdrawal action would bring the issue up at the board’s May 28 meeting and that, if it was not reversed there, they would seek to get a reversal at a congregational meeting, which may be called on petition of 25 congregation members.
Dr. Eisendrath claimed that the withdrawal reflected a widespread tendency to use the Viet Nam war to “curtail free expression of opinion.” He also charged that “the background for this continued dispute between certain members of the Temple’s board and the Union has been a disagreement with the Union’s whole program of social actions.” He said that the “one issue” if the Viet Nam war “should not be used as an excuse to alienate the congregation of Temple Emanu-El from the Reform Jewish movement and from the great humanitarian, ethical and religious impulse that has bound us in fellowship.”
Mr. Bachrach replied that Dr. Eisendrath “favors dissent against everything except his own views.” He added that the Temple had withdrawn “because we favor dissent. Our point is that he wants it to appear that he represents Reform Judaism and we do not agree that this is his right.” The Temple previously was out of the UAHC from July 1964 to July 1965 in a dispute over whether individual congregations should have the right to elect some of the UAHC’s 150 trustees.
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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.
