American Jewish leaders all over the nation today denounced the anti-Zionist resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last night, branding it an act of cynicism and anti-Semitism, a distortion of fact and falsification of history that has dealt a mortal blow at the principles for which the UN is supposed to represent rather than to Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people against which it was directed, They also praised the U.S. delegation to the UN, the Ford Administration and Congress for their unequivocal opposition to the resolution.
Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, chairman of the American Section of the World Zionist Organization, said that the two pro-PLO resolutions and the anti-Zionist resolution were a form of racism that represented “a black day in the history of the United Nations.” Addressing an emergency meeting of the WZO-American Section Executive here, she accused the Assembly of “flying in the face of both logic and history” in what was its “day of infamy.”
B’nai B’rith President David M. Blumberg called on governments “which respect truth and decency” to suspend financial support of the UN “until the General Assembly breaks the stranglehold of the Arab bloc and undoes the shameful action” of equating Zionism with racism. Blumberg said last night’s vote will “undermine the UN just as surely as the failure to condemn Fascist aggression in the 1930s led to the collapse of the League of Nations.”
Elmer L. Winter, president of the American Jewish Committee termed the anti-Zionist resolution “the most shameful of all anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the UN bodies and committees to date.”
Frank R. Lautenberg, United Jewish Appeal General Chairman, said the resolution “is a moral outrage against humanity, Anti-Zionists are anti-Semites–bigots in mind and heart. Today, we are all Zionists, Today, who threatens Israel, threatens not only every Jew, but all who care for the future of decency, integrity and democracy.”
Raymond Epstein, president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, said that “An unholy alliance of totalitarian and barbaric dictatorships has attempted to equate the existence of a democratic Jewish homeland founded in social justice, with the very evils which it was created to help eradicate. This action will redound only to the shame of those who have perpetrated it.”
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, president of the American Jewish Congress, charged today that “the United Nations has become a willing tool in the Arab campaign against the territorial integrity and legitimacy of the State of Israel,” He added, “It is time for the free nations of the world seriously to consider the value of the UN as an instrument of peace–and their own participation in it.”
Seymour Graubard, national chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, declared that the UN “is now the crucible for anti-Jewish hatred and no longer deserves the support of the American people and the American purse.”
The Agudath Israel of America, at its 53rd national convention in Atlantic City, NJ. adopted a resolution condemning the UN action which it said, is “an attempt to deny the divinely-accorded rights of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and as such an abominable act against the entire Jewish people.”
Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, declared that the UN resolution was “not an attack on Zionism, it is an attack on all of Jewry; it is an attack on the human race and is merely an effort to label black as white by a vote of cynical politicians and diplomats,”
Rabbi Mordecai Waxman, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said the Assembly vote is “almost a reversion to Hitlerian Nazism,” and that the resolution Itself “is an indictment of the moral state of the world today.” Mrs. Sarah Shane, president of the American Mizrachi Women, said that by adopting this measure, the UN committed an “obscene and anti-Semitic attack against the Jewish people and men of good will everywhere.” Har-old Ostroff, president of the Workmen’s Circle, called the anti-Zionist resolution “a victory for the fifth column Infiltrators of the UN.”
In Montreal, the Canada Israel Committee said today that the “despicable event at the United Nations on Black Monday, Nov. 10, may well be the beginning of the end for the noble dream of a United Nations founded as an alliance against Nazism 30 years ago. The UN today has become a forum for anti-Semitism. The Canada Israel Committee is proud of the Canadian government’s opposition to this virulent attack on the Jewish people and religion.”
But the CIC viewed with dismay Canada’s abstention on the UN resolution calling for the PLO to participate in the Geneva talks, The CIC added: “We will call upon the Canadian government to begin a serious reassessment of its relationship to and participation in the United Nations.”
In New York, the Student Mobilization for Israel announced it was sponsoring rallies on college campuses across the country to protest the resolution.
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.
