Dr. Louis Finkelstein, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, addressing the convention here of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America, last night called for the creation of a “Jewish assembly” for the benefit of modern spiritual life.
Rabbi Finkelstein told the convention delegates representing 100,000 members in 494 Conservative sisterhoods that “Judaism needs, for a spiritual life, a Jewish assembly of scholars, rabbis, laymen and laywomen.” Rabbinic Judaism, he added, requires interpretation to meet the challenges of our time.” Judaism needs today an institution which will do for our generation what the men of the Great Synagogue did for theirs,” he declared.
“Just as the men of the Great Synagogue constituted an assembly which was the bridge between prophecy and Rabbinic Judaism, so we now have to have an institution which might serve as a bridge between Rabbinical Judaism and the spiritual world in which our children have to live,” he pointed out.
The League, meanwhile, announced the launching of a nationwide program designed to “teach young Jewish mothers how to train their children in Jewish religious values and observances.” It also adopted a budget of $84,000 to cover educational, programmatical and maintenance projects.
The session of the convention opened with a religious service which was conducted entirely by the women delegates. Under the leadership of Mrs. David A. Goldstein, of Philadelphia, the women served in the roles of rabbi, centor, reader of the Torah, and performed all of the religious functions normally conducted only by men.
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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.
