U.S. Jews Told to Turn Inward and Abandon ‘universalistic Values’

A member of the Knesset asserted today that if American Jews did not turn “inward” and abandon their stress on “universalistic values such as civil rights and the peace movement.” Jewish life in the United States was more likely to vanish than flourish. That prediction was offered during the annual American-Israel Dialogue sponsored by the American Jewish Congress at Rehovot by S.Z. Abramov, a member of the rightist Gahal coalition. Abramov also contended that Jewish life in America could not center around Israel alone and needed a vital and authentic Jewish community in the United States. Earl Rarb, a sociologist who is executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, also stressed the “danger” to Jewish life in the U.S. which he said was inherent to the American trend toward becoming “a true cultural melting pot” for the first time in U.S. history. He said that development posed a threat to the maintenance of group identity in the United States in general and to Jewish identity in particular, not because of anti-Semitism but because the environment was one “increasingly hostile” to the assertion of separate ethnic identification. Prof. Irving Louis of Rutgers University drew a distinction between the political tasks of Israel as a Jewish state and the moral and cultural tasks of the Jewish people.

He said Israel was a state like any other state in that it had to look for its survival above all other considerations, often without regard to moral or ethical considerations. His statement evoked annoyance among some participants, including Carl Gersham of New York and Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland, president of the AJCongress, who contended that, from the earliest days of Zionism, the concept of the Jewish state included “recognition” of a “mission” beyond survival. An unscheduled participant in the dialogue today was Dr. Michael Zand, the Soviet Jewish scholar who arrived in Israel last month after suffering considerable harassment by Soviet authorities in his efforts to obtain an exit permit. He told the participants that the revival of Jewish aspirations among Soviet Jews was primarily one of young Russian Jews “who never knew before” the Six-Day War that they were Jews. Able Nathan, Israel’s “peace pilot,” asked Prof. Zand what Russian Jews thought about the activities on their behalf by the Jewish Defense League. Prof. Zand said Soviet Jews were divided on that question. He said his own opinion was that such hostile actions as those of the JDL were harmful in respect to Russian public opinion. He added that youth in Russia might support Jewish revival but that they would not accept demonstrations against Soviet cultural teams and artists abroad.