The position of American Jewry in American life was analyzed here today by Dr. John Slawson, executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee, in a paper prepared for presentation to the annual meeting of the organization opening tomorrow. The three-day meeting, at the Commodore Hotel, will conclude with the laying of a corner stone for the American Jewish Committee’s Institute of Human Relations.
“American Jewry,” Dr. Slawson said, “today carries with it a deeply American quality. It is predominantly native, it is American not only by citizenship but by upbringing, taste, outlook, even memories. Just as the Jew is primarily of a middle class group and urbanized, so is America generally becoming middle class and urbanized. America is catching up with its Jewish component.” The middle class tastes and values are now characteristic of the entire American population rather than a segment of it.
Dr. Slawson emphasized that the concept that America is primarily of a Judeo-Christian tradition, rather than solely of Christian roots, is rapidly gaining ground in the United States. This, he said, should contribute toward the surefooted self-acceptance of the Jew in this pluralistic society of America.
“While the nationality hyphenations during the first two decades of the century (Irish-American, Italian-American, Swedish-American) have been eliminated long ago, there is a return to a new form of hyphenated American–Protestant-American. Catholic-American, Jewish-American.” the American Jewish leader stated. “But there is a cultural lag between the deeply American quality of American Jewry today and the twin acceptance of healthy integration into America, and self-acceptance as Jews. While progress has been made, there is still a great lag, and that lag is being revealed not alone by general observation, but by studies that the AJC has been making in various communities of the country.
“There is a tendency for self-isolation-there is an uneasy relation with non-Jews; there is fear of risk of the consequences of open participation, such as inter-marriage or group extinction; and there is great sensitivity in any form of self-criticism,” Dr Slawson pointed out. He also claimed that “we are not sufficiently talking care of the beam in our own eyes” with reference to the prejudices Jews feel toward others. There are still vestigial remains of attitudes induced during the period of immigrant adjustment because of barriers of language, custom, and the meeting-pot theory of America harbored at that time,” he said.
Dr. Slawson recommended the following steps, all of them based on the desired purpose of giving the Jew a sense of surefootedness in America: “1. Knowledge of the fundamentals of Judaism (while our studies show that 60 percent of Jews in certain communities wanted it, very few have it); 2. The true knowledge of America–its pluralistic nature; 3. Dissemination of information of the disparity between what we think the general situation to be and what it actually is–Jewish attitudes as we find them; changes in the non-Jewish attitude toward Jews as we see them.
“We mast rot inculcate fear nor must we accept indifference, but we must espouse a condition of thoughtfulness among American Jews–a thoughtfulness that is realistic with respect to history and pragmatic with respect to future outcomes. We must instill as much as possible in our Jewish population in America a sense of balance which is the true meaning of ‘integration’, “Dr. Slawson urged. “We find, for instance, in one of our studies, that those who are affirmative in their Jewishness and in their citizenship role participate in both Jewish and community affairs in a balanced manner.”
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.
