Dr. Louis Rabinowitz, Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues, challenged the Nationalist Government of South Africa today in its attempts to extend its apartheid (segregation) policy to religion.
In an article in the current issue of the "Zionist Record," he rejected the amendment to the Native Laws Bill which would bar Negroes from white churches in this country. Despite the fact that "we have no native Jews in South Africa, " Rabbi Rabinowitz declared that the synagogues were "open to everyone of any creed or color" and that Negroes "would be admitted to services in exactly the same way as Europeans."
The Chief Rabbi stressed that Judaism makes no distinction between white and black and that Jewry included the black Jews of Cochin, the dark-skinned Yemenite Jews, the Negro Jews of Harlem and the Falashas of Ethiopia. He underlined the fact that there was no color bar in Israel.
The Jewish attitude toward the government attempt to bar common worship, Rabbi Rabinowitz said, was; "Under all circumstances; without reservation, the native Jew would be and is permitted to join the European Jew in the common act of worship in the synagogue to God, the Father of all men."
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.
