Action against anti-Semitic incidents at home, solidarity on behalf of Jews persecuted in the Soviet Union and a call for religious pluralism in Israel were endorsed by some 2,000 delegates from 900 Conservative Jewish congregations in the U.S. and Canada, attending the biennial convention of the United Synagogue of America, which closed here today. It marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Synagogue, the congregational branch of the Conservative movement.
Marshall Wolke, of Chicago, who was re-elected president of the United Synagogue, said the delegates reaffirmed their “commitment to the State of Israel and its people.” They also expressed their vigorous opposition “to demands by extremist elements within Orthodox Judaism that Israel revise its Law of Return so as to deny the validity of conversions by Conservative rabbis,” he said.
“Diversity of opinion and religious expression has been an historic feature of Judaism ” and “Jewish religious pluralism” must be upheld in Israel, the convention stated in its resolutions.
OPPOSE SCHOOL PRAYER
Rabbi Benjamin Kreitman, executive vice president of the United Synagogue, noted that the delegates expressed their opposition to “current efforts to reintroduce religious observance, prayer and celebration of religious holidays in the public schools of the United States” and opposed “tuition tax credits for private schools.”
The convention condemned recurring “anti-Semitic incidents of shameful desecration of synagogues and other houses of worship by hate groups in the United States bent on violating community harmony and risking a breakdown of law and order.”
The delegates charged “the leadership of the Soviet Union with fanning the flames of anti-Semitism.” They called for the “opening in Russia of the gates of emigration” to the hundreds of thousands “of our Jewish brothers and sisters who seek freedom to practice the faith of our fathers, preserve Jewish culture and teach the Hebrew language.”
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.
