Women’s Vote in British Synagogue Withdrawn at Leaders’ Insistence

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The crisis in the United Synagogue, in connection with the threatened resignation of the honorary officers because of a recent vote to grant the franchise to women, was averted at last night’s meeting of the Council, at which Lionel de Rothschild presided.

Following a statement by Sir Robert Waley-Cohen on the stand taken by the honorary officers, it was decided by a majority vote to rescind the resolution granting women the right to vote. On the motion of H. H. Gordon, seconded by Isaac Landau, it was resolved that a special committee be formed consisting of the honorary officers and six members of the Council for the purpose of finding ways and means of arriving at an agreement.

In stating the position of the honorary officers, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen said it was essential that there should be ordered evolution and not revolution, that any change in the Constitution should be a reflection of the solid and deep-rooted conviction of the majority of their members expressing their will deliberately and with every safeguard against undue haste or undue departure from the ordered path of their history. In the view of the honorary officers, the resolution which had been adopted was a mortal blow to the United Synagogue as a living body, which would drive from it all those who feel that their institution, if it is to be of any influence in the lives of its members and therefore of any religious value to them and to the community, must be something which lives and something which in well-ordered measure can bring the message of the past of the Jew into the lives of each successive generation as it grows up.

To put in the hands of a minority an artificial power to prevent this, was in their view fundamentally opposed to all the great democratic principles by which they had been guided in the past and would in their opinion destroy all confidence in the United Synagogue. They refused to be a party to such a mortal blow. They believed it to be dictated by ignorance or a misreading of the strong sense of the community throughout its long and honorable history.

The honorary officers did not feel that they could carry on the work of the United Synagogue except with the support of the great body of the members expressed through the Council of the United Synagogue in its work. They could only do that if they had behind them the goodwill and support of the main body of the Council. Without that they could not continue to bear the burden of the daily work and the responsibilities.