The three-day conference of the Rabbinical Council of America, an Orthodox rabbinical organization, concluded here today with a statement appealing to the United Nations to “seek the release of Jewish religious leaders who are languishing in Russian prisons solely because of their religious convictions.”
“The entire world can only be repelled by the fact that the religious heads of the Jewish community have been placed under charge and imprisoned,” the statement said. It pointed out that “it is an imperative obligation of the United Nations and the entire civilized world to redeem the compelling directives of the United Nations Charter for the implementation of human rights such as the release of innocent Russian Jews from detention.”
The 500 rabbis who attended the conference also appealed to the Soviet Government to restore the general guarantee of religious liberty and freedom of worship to the Jewish citizens “who have been unjustly victimized by outbursts of discrimination, prejudice and physical violence in recent years.”
Resolutions adopted by the conference included: 1. A call to the American Government to bring about a cessation of the Arab boycott against American Jews; 2. An appeal to the United Nations to secure the reopening of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping; 3. A demand that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police agencies mobilize their maximum resources to stamp out the recent wave of synagogue desecration and swastika smearings; 4. A demand to the Justice Department to include the American Nazi party in the list of subversive organizations.
The conference also called upon all local Jewish federations to stop immediately the opening of YMHA’s and YWHA’s on the Sabbath “so as to avoid the violation of a sacred tenet of Judaism.” Principals and teachers in American schools were urged by the conference to avoid sponsoring those religious functions in the public schools, which infringe on the basic American principle of separation of church and state.
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