Rabin Urges That Israel Send Religious-oriented Emissaries Abroad

Rabbi Walter S. Wurzburger, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, charged yesterday that Israel does not select the most suitable individuals to send abroad to promote aliya.

In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency following the Council’s five-day conference here, Wurzburger said Israel should make sure that the people sent overseas to encourage aliya should be more sensitive to religion. “After all,” said Wurzburgar, “the main potential for aliya among American Jewry is that of religious Jews.”

Similarly, Wurzburger urged a larger role for religion in a wider spectrum of life in Israel itself, to make it not only a State for the Jews, but in essence a “Jewish State.”

INTENSIVE PROGRAM OUTLINED

Wurzburger told the JTA that his organization would embark on an intensive program intended to strengthen the ties between Israel and the diaspora with stress on the spiritual character of these ties.

This would be done, he said, by urging each congregation in the U.S. to grant leaves of absence for a sabbatical year for its rabbis to allow them to acquaint themselves with the State of Israel and as a means of reducing the gap between the religious and secular society in Israel and by urging American rabbis to set aside at least one Sabbath a year for a thorough discussion of aliya and the ties with Israel and for various Hebrew schools to gear their programs to stimulate aliya as one of the goals of Jewish education.

CORRECTION

The story on Page 1 of Tuesday’s Bulletin describing youngsters participating in activities offered in Israel by the Jewish Agency’s youth and hechalutz department was incorrect. It should have read the World Zionist Organization’s youth and hechalutz department. In the same story it was noted that the Jewish Agency provides a $100 subsidy to each youth traveling to Israel. Again, it should have been the WZO.