Creation of a “World Council of Christianity and Judaism” and establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine after the war were urged yesterday in a statement issued by the “American Institute on Judaism and a Just and Enduring Peace” at the close of its four-day session at the Hebrew Union College here. The statement also demanded the creation by the United Nations of a tribunal to try “those responsible for the perpetration of crimes against humanity,” and the removal of all racial barriers.
Discussing Jewish post-war reconstruction, the leading rabbis and laymen from all sections of the country who participated in the Institute stressed that after victory has been achieved by the Allied Nations, the Jews, who were among the chief victims of the Nazis, must be given homes and opportunities to rehabilitate themselves. This can be best accomplished, the statement pointed out, by:
1 – Recognition by all nations “of the right of Jewish groups everywhere to the fullest enjoyment and fostering of their religious and cultural heritage in accordance with their specific needs and conditions in their respective countries.
2 – Creation after the war of conditions which “will permit as large a Jewish immigration into Palestine as possible, in accordance with the obligations assumed under the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine mandate,” and action by the United Nations “to facilitate in every way the work of rebuilding that land.”
As the “inter-faith basis of a just and enduring peace,” the statements proposed the immediate creation of a “World Council of Christianity and Judaism,” which “while preserving the integrity of each religion” would mobilize their spiritual resources for the application of righteousness and brotherhood in the post-war world. Such a Council, it added, might, in due time, be replaced by a “World Council of Religion” which would “embrace in its membership all the religions of the world.”
To secure the political prerequisites of a just and enduring peace after the war will require the creation of “a federation of nations in the interests of which the sovereignty of individual states shall be limited,” the statement declared, Such a federation of nations, it emphasizes, must set up a tribunal to try those guilty of the murder and persocution of countless thou-sands of innocent civilians.
“Racial discriminations and segregations must be eliminated from the laws of states and nations,” after victory, the statement stressed, at the same time urging an and to the exploitation of colenial peoples and discrimination against Negroes. It pointed out also that “Judaism maintains that no just and onduring peace is possible unless founded upon full political, economic and social rights for men everywhere,” and asks guarantees for the rights of workers to organize “in order to advance their own welfare.”
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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.
