Leading Orthodox scholars urged Orthodox Jews, at the 51st annual convention of Agudath Israel of America here, “to reach out to the illiterate American Jewish masses using every available means.”
The 3,000 delegates and guests from nine countries and 25 states also heard an appeal that technological advances be used not for mass destruction “but for the elevation of man through the study of Torah.”
Rabbi Moshe Sherer, Agudath Israel president, urged Orthodox Jews “not to become smugly self-satisfied from the recent accelerated growth of Orthodox Jewry and its influence in this country.” He added that “a large portion of America’s Jews reek from the stench of spiritual death.”
Sherer urged Agudah activists to accelerate outreach programs to “save for a Jewish future the one million Jewish boys and girls in this country who have still to utter” the basic Jewish affirmation, “Sh’ma Yisrael.”
Rabbi Shmuel Hulpert, a member of the Aguda Knesset faction and of the Knesset Committee on Intelligence and Foreign Affairs, said he was confident Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s new coalition government would implement the “religious commitments made to Aguda Israel.” He listed these as amendment of Israel’s Law of Return to bar immigrants converted under non-Orthodox auspices, and enactment of a law to ban archaeological digging in ancient grave sites.
Rabbi Yehida Abramovitz, chairman of the agency’s world organization, came directly to the convention here from Poland and reported the progress of negotiations of an Orthodox delegation with the Polish government to restore some of the more than 400 Jewish cemeteries.
He said that, as a first step, nearly 70 cemeteries had been listed for restoration with funds to be raised in the west. He said Polish officials had been “extremely cooperative” since a written agreement was signed last summer between the Orthodox delegation and the Polish government.
President Reagan, in a message, praised the Orthodox agency for its “important part in strengthening the dedication of the Jewish people to ancient and revered traditions which have been severely tested over the centuries.”
The President said that despite the recent refusal of the Senate to approve a tuition tax credit bill for parents of children in private schools, which would affect yeshiva day schools, “we remain strongly committed to achieving this goal.”
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.
