The impact of the establishment of the state of Israel on American Jewry and the broad national campaign to implement civil rights in the United States were the major subjects of discussion today at the opening session of the three-day annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee being held at the Hotel Astor.
The panel devoted to Israel, at which Maurice Wertheim, former president of the American Jewish Committee, presided, unanimously agreed that complete political separation must be maintained between Jews who are citizens of the U.S. and those who are nationals of Israel, although recognizing that Israel requires all the financial and moral support of American and other Jews that it can get.
"The principle of political separation between the citizens of Israel and the Jewish community throughout the world does not mean that all ties between them ought to be severed," it was the consensus of the panel. "It must be remembered that Israel has not been created solely to secure the welfare of its inhabitants but also primarily as a haven for those Jews who find it necessary or desirable to go there and lead lives free from the threat or actuality of persecution. Accordingly, it is agreed that Israel must be rendered capable not only of supporting its existing populations but of acquiring and maintaining facilities for extensive immigration."
Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok, in a cable of greetings to Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the Committees, declared that the people of Israel "gratefully remember the support which we received from you and your organization during the last few critical years to our struggle for Jewish rights and interests in Palestine. We feel confident that your constructive assistance will continue to be given to Israel during its formative period, both in defending our new-born freedom and in the great tasks of economic and spiritual reconstruction that await us," the message said.
The workshop group devoted to civil rights in the United States, headed by Ben Herzberg, chairman of the legal and civic affairs committee of the A.J.C., voiced strong disapproval of the practice, which exists in many states, of segregation of educational facilities.
On the question of releasing children from public schools for sectarian religious instruction during "working" school hours, Mr. Herzberg pointed out that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the McCollum case–declaring the release of children from the public schools an unconstitutional use of the public school system in aid of religion–"has by no means put an end to the system of released time, although in a few areas it has resulted in the discontinuance of the practice."
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.
