American Jewish Press Week Opens; Five Day Convention Starts Today

The American Jewish Press Week was opened today by the American Jewish Press Association whose membership comprises English-Jewish weeklies published in the United States and Canada. A five-day convention of the Association will open in Washington tomorrow to deal with problems concerning the English-Jewish press. Receptions for the delegates will be given by the Embassy of Israel and by B’nai B’rith.

The importance of the English-Jewish press to the American Jewish community was emphasized in a statement issued by Philip Slomovitz, chairman of the American Jewish Press Week. He pointed out that “many communities which are without newspapers, and do not utilize the services offered them by the Jewish press, will live in a vacuum.” The only effective Jewish press in the world today, outside of Israel, is the English-Jewish press, he stressed.

“The English-Jewish newspaper is the guardian over the public welfare of our people,” Mr. Slomovitz stated. “It is the historian of Jewry. It is the chronicle of our time and it may well be considered the Third Volume to the Biblical Book of Chronicles — the Divrey Ha-Yamim. Our newspapers are the sentinels that watch over our freedoms, the defenders of our basic American ideals and of our sacred Jewish traditions. Without this watch-dog over Jewry’s destinies, the great movements which operate in behalf of the downtrodden, the support of Israel, would not be able effectively to reach out to the communities which supply the funds for creative efforts and for redemption.”

Mr. Slomovitz also emphasized that world Jewry’s basic hope for a positive perpetuation of the heritage of the Jewish people is dependent upon the proper dissemination of news about Jews everywhere and the presentation of such news to the Jewish communities in all lands.