Boston Jewish Council Appeals for Revision of Immigration Law

The Jewish Community Council here adopted a resolution emphasizing that while President Eisenhower’s proposal for admission of 240,000 refugees to the United States within two years shows interest in the plight of Europe’s displaced persons, “this proposal does not come to grips with the basic inequities” of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.

Continuing, the resolution maintained that the present Act still had imbedded in it “the national origins quota system, a racist doctrine. We appeal to our Repre sentatives and Senators to substitute for this outmoded criterion a flexible immigration provision allocating opportunities for admission without regard to the accident of place of birth. We hail the establishment of the Massachusetts Committee for Revision of the McCarran-Walter Act and join with our fellow Americans in this united effort to achieve a thorough rewriting of the existing iniquitious law.”

The Jewish Community Council also adopted a resolution dealing with teen-age physical attacks on Jews in the Boston area. “As a member agency of that body, said the resolution, “we stand ready to cooperate with the Greater Boston Council for Youth towards the ends of eliminating incidents of a racist nature and assisting the young people of this area in their endeavor to build constructive lives free of misunderstanding, prejudice and hostility.”

A resolution on civil liberties aligned the Community Council “with all our energy in defending American security against threats of attack by enemies from without and subversion of American strength from within.” Asserting that it will continue to combat Communism “with every means at our disposal,” the Council declared it is also determined to oppose those who, “under the guise of anti-Communism and denunciation, innuendo and false suspicions, would create disunity and distrust and attempt to destroy our civil liberties.”