Wjc Leader Urges Candor About Israel’s Internal Political Problems

At a time when the dialogue between Israeli and American Jewish leadership called for honesty and candor, too many American Jewish organizations felt inhibited and limited themselves to non-controversial public statements and pious wishes. Umbrella organizations compromised by seeking the lowest common denominator. These views were expressed by Jacques Torczyner, chairman of the American Section of the World Jewish Congress, in his report last night to a meeting of the Plenary Council of the American Section.

“American Jews are worried about the future of Israel, about its very existence, but there is no place where we can discuss freely and fully what options face us here and what options face the leaders of Israel,” he said. “I hope that the American Section will provide a forum where Jewish leaders can come together, express their views openly, be unafraid of criticism and dissent, and seriously seek the consensus necessary for greater unity and broader action in the community.”

Turning to the many problems confronting Jewish leadership in Latin America. Torczyner said a recent meeting of the enlarged Executive of the LAJC had deplored the tendency on the part of certain Jewish organizations in the U.S. to publish reports on the situation of Latin American communities without any consultation with the representative bodies of these communities. Nobody doubted that these American organizations were well-intentioned, Torczyner noted, but sometimes their activities were prejudicial to the interests of Latin American Jewry.