The executive committee of the B’nai B’rith Women’s Supreme Council, at a meeting in Washington today, adopted a report recognizing “the Communist threat to human freedom and dignity” –but asserting the threat can only be met and overcome by those who are devoted to the “moral basis of our religious and political traditions. “
The statement was concerned with the recent tendencies which have “brushed aside the classic American safeguards of human liberty–painstaking investigation, fair and impartial hearing, the right to confront and cross-examine one’s accusers, and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. This tendency has substituted for these safeguards the destruction of reputation by rumor, defamation and the intimidation of critics. “
The Women’s Supreme Council, representing 125,000 B’nai B’rith women in the United States and Canada, “viewed with grave concern the climate of fear and mutual suspicion which has developed and given cover to professional bigots and hate-mongers. We urge, ” the report concluded, “those entrusted with the leadership of our government and all other Americans of good will to speak out boldly against those who would confuse dissent with disloyalty, and destroy honest reputations by rumor, defamation and intimidation. “
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.
