U.c.j.c.a. Considers Withdrawal from Jewish ‘roof’ Organizations

A proposal for the creation of a permanent coordinating committee of American Orthodox Jewish organizations was approved here last night by delegates to the 66th anniversary biennial convention of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

The proposal was submitted to the 1,800 delegates by Rabbi Joseph Karasick, of New York, chairman of a special committee on re-evaluation. He offered the proposal after presenting the report of the committee which stressed that creation of such a coordinating committee must precede any consideration of withdrawal by Orthodox organizations from their present participation in general Jewish coordinating agencies. The delegates reelected Moses I. Feuerstein, of Brookline, Mass., as president.

The special committee was named several months ago to determine the benefits and liabilities of association of the UOJCA, the national organization claiming to serve 3,100 Orthodox congregations in the United States and Canada, with national Jewish “roof” agencies, such as the Synagogue Council of America, the National Jewish Welfare Board and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. Debate within Orthodox groups over the advantages and disadvantages of such association has been in progress for many years.

Rabbi Karasick said that, in regard to liabilities, the special committee had found that “there is implied in such association the ipso facto recognition of non-Orthodox philosophies as legitimate alternatives to the historic and authentic Judaism of Orthodoxy.” He said the committee also feared that such association might blunt Orthodox initiative, fail to represent Jewish religious law effectively, and might impede unification and coordination within the Orthodox community.

On the other hand, he said, there were vital areas in which the Orthodox groups now had “no independent channels of communication.” He warned that withdrawal would cause Orthodox Jewry severe handicaps in effectively representing its interests in such areas as government and legislative matters, Soviet Jewry, the Vatican and the Ecumenical Council, civil rights, the Israel-Arab dispute and international Jewish agencies.

CONVENTION WARNED AGAINST ‘TURNING THE CLOCK BACKWARDS’

Rabbi Karasick said the immediate task was to create “an Orthodox Jewish coordinating committee composed of the major Jewish Orthodox organizations, with the task of establishment of independent channels of communications and instruments of action in vital areas.” Other Orthodox organizations invited to consider the proposal were the Religious Zionists of America, the Rabbinical Alliance of America and Agudath Israel of America. Rabbi Murray Weitman, a member of the executive board of the Agudath Israel, endorsed the proposal at the session, but reiterated the ultra-Orthodox organization’s belief that withdrawal should take place without delay.

The delegates heard a warning from Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, assistant to the president of Yeshiva University, and past president of the Rabbinical Council of America, that American Jewish Orthodoxy would be “turning the clock backwards” if it stifled “creative philosophical thinking.” He said Orthodoxy needed “an ecumenical movement of its own, so that we do not practice further fission rather than fusion,” and that Orthodoxy had nothing to fear from dialogue “with all Jews, secularists as well as non-Orthodox.”

The end of the “religious boom” in the United States and Canada, in which religion is valued largely as a “respectable status symbol,” was predicted at the convention today by a prominent Canadian Rabbi, who called the development “a blessing in disguise.” The end of that boom, Rabbi Walter S. Wurzburger, of Toronto, said, afforded religion an opportunity to purify itself so that it may emerge as a more vital and dynamic force.