The 72nd annual four-day convention of Brith Abraham opened here yesterday in the presence of more than 1,000 delegates representing 275 lodges throughout the country. Dr. Joachaim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, addressing the delegates, today stressed that “anti-Semitism has ceased to be an issue of paramount concern today to the Jews of America.” At the same time he declared that American Jewry is “developing a diluted, superficial interpretation of Jewish heritage.”
“The knowledge of the sources of our heritage and the language in which they are written are no longer the sure possession of either youth or adults,” he said. “Our real concern is not mere physical survival. Our deep and grave concern is the creative continuity of one of the oldest and noblest heritages in the Western civilization.”
Dr. Prinz spoke on the future of American Jewry. “Our problem is the degree and the depth of the survival of our heritage,” he stated. “Such survival is not guaranteed by building programs, fund-raising or community organization, however efficient.
“Our problem is not belongingness. Our problem is how to develop a full commitment to Judaism at a time and in a world where we are free to be or not to be Jews. Our problem is to identify ourselves not only with our fellow Jews today but with our fellow Jews of the past–by which I mean our Jewish heritage: our language, our literature, our history and our eternal hopes.”
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.
