Reform Leader Denounces As ‘cop-outs’ Those Who Boycott Election in Protest

A leader of Reform Judaism rebuked “that alarmingly large segment of the electorate which seems determined to counter its sense of political hurt by not casting a Presidential vote this year.” Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, in a statement issued today, urged Americans to observe “the eleventh commandment–Thou shalt not cop out.”

Rabbi Eisendrath said it was “sheer stupidity and petulance” to “protest by noninvolvement which is not protest at all.” He said those who refuse to “take a hand in correcting the real or imagined wrongs within the body politic” were akin to “those self-styled liberals who withdraw from the civil rights struggle because they have been shocked, frightened or rejected by black extremists.”