The Union of American Hebrew Congregations is charged with displaying a tendency to abandon “Reform” in favor of “Liberal” Judaism and with issuing educational material that has “a predominantly nationalistic interpretation of Jewish life and history” in a resolution adopted by the Congregation with Israel here, a Reform body, the full text of which was made public this week.
The resolution demands that the policies and personnel of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations be investigated. It urges that U.A.H.C. convention delegates would, in the future, be predominantly laymen and that rabbis should attend mainly as advisory capacities. Also that U.A.H.C. commissions should consist chiefly of layer. Failure on the part of the executive of the U.A.H.C. to disavow the resolution of the American Jewish Conference calling for a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine virtually commits the Union to political Zionism the Beth Israel Congregation charges.
The congregation also protests against the Central Conference of American rabbis for its resolution which stated that “there is no essential incompatibility between Reform Judaism and Zionism.” It charges the C.C.A.R. with adopting a maximal Zionist program in violation of the 1937 decisions of that body. It also criticizes the delegates of the C.C.A.R. for condoning the attacks made at the American Jewish conference upon fellow rabbis and laymen opposed to political Zionism.
The resolution adopted by Beth Israel Congregation demands that the curriculum, requirements and personnel of the Hebrew Union College be investigated. It charges that some of the entrance requirements to the College militate against admission of this of Reform families and urges that the College should have a “more thorough course” the ideology of Reform Judaism.
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.
