“The status of the United Jewish Appeal and proposals to achieve separation of philanthropic gifts from funds for Zionist and other ‘Jewish’ nationalist uses” will be discussed at the three-day annual conference of the American Council for Judaism which opens here tomorrow at the Drake Hotel, it was announced today.
“The conference will also consider means of countering Israel-oriented nationalist indoctrination in religious school textbooks and instruction,” the announcement said. About 220 delegates will attend the parley at which Dorothy Thompson, the noted journalist, will be one of the principal guest speakers.
In his presidential report, prepared for delivery tomorrow, Lessing J. Rosenwald says that Zionism had successfully reached out for the control of philanthropic institutions and other important areas of Jewish activity through failure of non-Zionist elements to recognize Zionism as a movement to “nationalize” all Jews including those of the United States.
“Only the apathy, the drift, the continued underestimation of Zionism, permits the Israel Government, through its handmaiden the Zionist Organization, to make American Jews finance Israel’s national policy, dominate our lives, wreck the Joint Distribution Committee, and vitiate our local welfare funds and institutions,” the president of the American Council for Judaism states.
SAYS J.D.C. PARTNERSHIP WITH U.P.A. HELPS ZIONIST PROPAGANDA
Declaring that Zionism’s propaganda campaigns have been made possible by the merger of the J.D.C. with Zionist fund-raising organizations, Mr. Rosenwald claims in his report that “through its control of American Jewish philanthropy, Zionism has built a tremendous machine to lobby for Israel.” He also deplores the efforts to represent the Israel current bond campaign as an obligation of American patriotism.
“We are witness today,” he continues in his message, “of the spectacle of American Jews being mobilized as salesmen for Israeli bonds. American Jews are being importuned to sponsor this campaign to sell bonds of a foreign state because, according to Henry Morgenthau, support of this bond issue is motivated by American patriotism. The only bonds I know of involving patriotism of an American citizen, are the bonds of the Government of the United States.”
President Truman, in a message to the conference, said that “the Council deserves high credit for its program dedicated to the increasing national, civic, cultural and social integration of Americans of Jewish faith and for its belief that nationality and religion are separate and distinct.” The President expressed his hope that “the success which so far has crowned the efforts of the Council, will continue and grow with the years in the interest of your coreligionists and of Americans of all faiths as well.”
Sen. Robert A. Taft, in a message, commended the Council “for its efforts to maintain the basic principles of American tradition by founding its activities on individual rights, which include freedom of religion, and by encouraging the recognition of citizens of Jewish faith as individual Americans, entitled to these individual rights in the acceptance of their responsibilities as Americans first.”
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.
