The head of an Orthodox rabbinical organization declared here today that American Jewish organizations should not seek to influence what Jewish religious dominations are accepted in Israel.
“It is not the objective of the World Zionist Organization or the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the United Jewish Appeal to assure a victory of one or another religious domination” in their struggle to gain inroads in the religious life of Israel, Rabbi Sol Roth, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, told the opening session of the organization’s 46th annual convention.
“Those forums in which a Jewish community is characterized by diversity should function in unity,” he said.” Jewish leaders have a sacred obligation to preserve that unity.” Roth charged that there is a crisis in Jewish leadership because American Jewish leaders “utilize large reservoirs of power for purposes other than those for which they were established.”
In his address to several hundred rabbis from across the country, Roth charged that American Jewish leaders often set examples that do “not contribute to the strengthening of Jewish life or even to Jewish survival. We have protested in the past to the election of individuals to leadership in the Jewish community whose personal conduct is such that if it were to inspire emulation, as it inevitably does, the Jewish community would suffer dimunition and Jewish life erosion. Jews with non-Jewish spouses and rabbis who officiate at mixed marriages are not the kinds of models that the Jewish community can afford.”
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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.
