Shimon Peres, the leader of Israel’s Labor Alignment opposition, today warmly welcomed the invitation to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to come to Israel and declared that if he brings a serious desire to seek peace, “peace can be achieved in a matter of days, even of hours.”
The former Israeli Defense Minister said, “I am sure I am speaking for the whole of Israel, even for the whole of the Jewish people, when I say that the hope for peace is as important as the challenge of war. We have shown that we can stand united in the face of danger, and I am sure that we shall demonstrate to the world that we are united in the cause of peace, with the same determination, with the same depths and sincerity.”
Peres, who addressed the 2000 delegates at the biennial convention of the United Synagogue of America at the Concord Hotel here, declared with a smile, that Israel could find enough Egyptian flags and bunting to decorate the streets of Jerusalem for Sadat and that the country’s bands and orchestras could learn to play the Egyptian anthem in time. “We shall overcome,” Peres said.
He said that the Jews have really not had any quarrels, from their side, with Egypt since Moses’ quarrel with them. “We have not coveted their pyramids and they have not coveted Jerusalem,” he said.
“If Sadat comes to Israel,” Peres said, “he will sense immediately that he is coming to a friendly country, a country that seeks peace and friendship with Egypt. Let’s face it. If Sadat comes with a great mission of bringing an end to the conflict, I am sure that his mission will be an instant success, and peace can be in a matter of days if not in a matter of hours.”
Peres expressed deep pride in the American Jewish people in the face of a danger of pressures by the U.S. government against Israel. “American Jews stood up for Israel as one single man, united and determined,” he declared.
OPPOSE AID TO PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
On another front, the United Synagogue stood firm on its traditional opposition to federal and state aid to religious education by discarding overwhelmingly a resolution which would have called for a study of the matter. By a standing vote, the delegates rejected turning over to the joint commission on social action of the Conservative movement the question to evaluate the matter and report to the next convention in two years.
The movers of the resolution were motivated, they explained, by the financial situation within the chain of Solomon Schechter day schools which the Conservatives have been establishing throughout the country and which like all such schools have been feeling the pinch of a growing shortage of children because of the near-zero population increase.
In another resolution, the convention overwhelmingly re-endorsed the equal rights amendment and called on those states which have not already done so to ratify it.
CORRECTION: The Daily News Bulletin of November 16 was incorrectly dated Tuesday. It should have been dated Wednesday.
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.
