The Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of American Rabbis have called upon President Carter to declare the site where Ohio national guardsmen fatally shot four Kent State University students in 1970 a national monument.
“Kent State cannot erase the memories of the tragic shootings by constructing a building on that site,” according to Rabbi David Saperstein, associate director of the Commission on Social Action of the Reform Jewish groups. “We urge President Carter to request immediately that the Interior Department will investigate the advisability of designating the site of the shootings as a national monument.”
Saperstein called attempts by the university to construct a gymnasium on the site where four students were shot “a desecration of that site and all it represents.” Citing the “insensitivity of the university to the young people they should be serving,” he urged Kent State officials to “commemorate the events of 1970 in an appropriate manner in which the country can take pride.”
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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.
