U.p.a. Comments on Young Wise’s Withdrawal from the Rabbinate

James Waterman Wise who has just announced his withdrawal from preparation to become a rabbi because he could not accept the theology of Judaism, will not, in future, deliver addresses on behalf of the United Palestine Appeal, Emanuel Neumann, national director of the United Palestine Appeal, declared in a statement he issued. Mr. Wise, the son of Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue, had been quoted in dispatches from Minneapolis as saying he intended to continue speaking before groups of young Jews throughout the country on behalf of the United Paestine Appeal.

Mr. Neumann’s statement read:

“A report appears in todays newspapers containing a statement in which James W. Wise explains the reasons that have moved him to abandon his studies for the rabbinate. The report gives further the erroneous impression that Mr. Wise is to engage in a series of lectures on behalf of the United Palestine Appeal. With regard to Mr. Wise’s renunciation of the rabbinate he expresses, of course his personal viewpoint, which is essentially out of accord with the spirit of the Zionist movement and its underlying principles.

“Mr. Wise volunteered to speak for the United Palestine Appeal in Minneapolis as substitute for his father, whom illness prevented from traveling to that city. It was never contemplated that Mr. Wise should deliver a series of lectures for the United Palestine Appeal and in view of the statement that has appeared such a lecture engagement is our of the question. The officers of the United Palestine Appeal would regret any erroneous inference that the Appeal is in any way concerned with what is a purely personal matter with Mr. Wise.”