Agudah Seeks to Secure Jewish Religious Education for Orphans Adopted by Gentiles

A proposal that the International Convention on Human Rights contain a provision guaranteeing that children whose parents were killed in the late war or in any other major catastrophe must be brought up in the religion of their parents was made here today by Dr. Isaac Lewin, a World Agudas Israel leader. Dr. Lewin made the proposal at a session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights with a view to securing Jewish religious education for Jewish war orphans adopted by Christian families and institutions.

Representatives of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs and the International Union of the League of Catholic Women, as well as many delegates go the Commission, endorsed the principle advocated by the Agudah leader. The British delegate, Marguerite Bowie, who agreed that parents should have the right to educate their children in their own religion, thought it “tragic” to alienate Jewish wartime orphans from Gentile families who risked their lives for the children.