White House Conference on Youth Discusses Church-state Relations

The issue of Church-State relations is emerging as a major matter of Jewish interest as the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth moved into its second day, according to Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, vicechairman of the conference and executive director of the Synagogue Council of America.

The first two days of sessions were devoted to viewpoints on the cultural and moral climate of American life. The conference’s workshops are now beginning to deal with a broad range of problems including the issue of Church-State separation because of a drive for teaching of moral and spiritual values in public schools. Other problems of Jewish interest include federal aid to parochial schools, released time and dismissal time, and child adoption laws.

Jewish delegates have raised a question of neo-Nazism as a facet of juvenile delinquency and sought to obtain discussion of this problem which is not on the formal agenda. Mrs. Charles Hymes, president of the Nation Council of Jewish Women, urged that the responsibility of the home, church and school for Juvenile participation in anti-Semitic vandalism and other forms of prejudice be made a major item of discussion at the conference.

A.L. Sachar, president of Brandeis University, in an address, termed the present state of mind of youth as “uncommitted.” He said “It is not a lost generation. If anything it is too much unlost. It is withdrawn. Its restlessness is not a product of concern; it is a product of lack of concern.”

Philip M. Klutznick, honorary international president of B’nai B’rith, was designated by the conference to act as chairman of a forum on “Opportunity–Freedom to Participate in Community Life and Its Effects On The Young. “