Spokesmen for Three Faiths Invited by House Unit to Testify on Jerusalem Future

Two American rabbis, a Roman Catholic and a Moslem scholar have been invited by the Near East subcommittee of the House Foreign Relations Committee to present their views as individuals July 28 at a hearing on the status of Jerusalem, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today. The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, Indiana Democrat, will also take up the Suez Canal, the Palestinian movement and the situation on the Persian Gulf at hearings later this month and in August. John Franklin Campbell, editor of Foreign Relations and Alvin Cottrell, director of research at the Georgetown Center for Strategic Studies, will testify next week on the implications of the reopening of the Suez. Canal, the JTA was told. The JTA learned that the invitees to the July 28 hearing on Jerusalem are Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, director of the interreligious affairs department of the American Jewish Committee; Dr. James Kritzeck, director of the Institute of Higher Religious Studies at Noire Dame University, South Bend, Ind., and Muhammad Abdal-Rauf, director of the Islamic Center in New York.

The JTA also learned that Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg of Temple Emanuel, Englewood, N.J. a member of the Jewish Agency Executive who is presently in Jerusalem, had been sent an invitation for the July 28 date through the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. Rabbi Hertzberg, currently a visiting professor at the Hebrew University, said last week that he had been invited to appear at a hearing on the status of Jerusalem by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. J. William Fulbright (D., Ark.) A spokesman for the committee told the JTA yesterday that such hearings were not on schedule but could be “in the air.” Rabbi Tanenbaum told the JTA that he was invited to the July 28 hearing in a letter from subcommittee consultant Michael Van Dusen. He said the letter indicated that he and the other witnesses would be asked to testify on the importance of Jerusalem to their respective faiths and to list a range of alternatives as to its future status. Four members of the 10-man subcommittee questions Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Joseph J. Sisco for almost two hours yesterday. A staff counsel characterized the session as preparatory for next week’s hearing.