Bernard Backer, newly elected president of the Workmen’s Circle, urged the current special session of the United Nations General Assembly on disarmament to place on its agenda a call to the Soviet Union to disarm the Palestine Liberation Organization and other terrorist groups active in the Middle East.
Backer made his appeal in his acceptance address at the biennial convention of the 78-year-old Jewish labor fraternal order here which closed last night. Morris Petrushka was elected vice president and Mitchell Lokiec was elected treasurer. Resolutions were adopted re-affirming support for Israel and the perpetuation of Jewish culture around the world. The results of a survey of the Workmen’s Circle membership were released, indicating a return to traditional Jewish observances. Nine hundred delegates attended the convention.
In an address at an earlier session, Joseph Mlotek, educational director of the Workmen’s Circle, proposed the creation of a joint commission made up of Jewish community centers, educational and cultural bodies and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to initiate Yiddish language studies at elementary and high-schools in the U.S. According to Mlotek, there is sufficient strength in the large urban and suburban centers where Jews live to develop Yiddish language studies in the public school systems. He noted that HEW has been providing funds for bi-lingual and non-English language cultural projects and that “Yiddish has the credentials as a language and as a culture to qualify for these funds.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
