“The rabbi too is to be found among the great army of America’s unemployed”, Rabbi Israel Levinthal of Brooklyn, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of America, told the annual convention of the Assembly today. “With seminaries graduating large classes and with the cessation of organization of new congregations a problem is created that challenges our immediate attention”, he declared.
The two specific remedies suggested by Rabbi Levinthal were increasing the rabbinical course by at least one year, and then expecting a year of service as assistant rabbi to a more mature colleague in the active ministry. Rabbi Levinthal also demanded a liberal interpretation of Jewish law and suggested that the committee on Jewish law of the Assembly seek methods of judicial interpetation that would give the religious law “new meaning, new construction and new vitality”.
Rabbi Levinthal recommended that the Assembly call on the congregations represented by its members to support the American Palestine Campaign and the Joint Distribution Committee’s drive, urged the Assembly to go on record as favoring legislation giving the Jews who want to observe the kashruth laws the protection of the states.
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.
