“We are today going through our second battle for our independence just as we went through our first battle for independence in 1948,” declared Israel’s Ambassador Simcha Dinitz in an address here to 2000 delegates attending the convention of the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism. He added: “We will overcome our difficulties now just as we did then for we are stronger today than ever before, and the Jewish people is behind us.”
Dinitz declared that Israel could take care of herself militarily in any new crisis that may arise out of Arab miscalculation that it can destroy Israel, but appealed to the delegates to “become part of us by coming to live with us, by giving your children a more intensive Jewish education so they will know what it means to be Jews, and help us by telling the saga of Israel’s struggle for liberation and the justice of its cause to as many Americans as you can reach.”
Dinitz made a direct appeal for American aliya, adding: “But if you and your children can’t come to settle, then begin to “think aliya,’ Make it a central concern. Come for visits, for periods of study. Become a part of the greatest social experiment that the Jewish people have undertaken in 2000 years.”
Appealing for more intensive Jewish education, he said that if such education was missing, then “you are diminishing the Jewish community and its ties to Judaism. We will not have Jews unless we have Jews who are knowledgeable of their heritage. Teach the meaning of Jewishness to your children. Reinforce this teaching in the home,” Dinitz also stressed the importance of public opinion and a proper understanding of Israel. “We must reach the confused, the puzzled, the broad American community,” he said, “and the next few months are decisive.”
WOMEN TO BE COUNTED IN MINYAN
The convention voted by a 6-1 margin to allow women, in effect, to be counted in the minyan and to be called up to make the blessing at the reading of the Torah. This issue had been the subject of considerable controversy within Conservative Judaism circles. The resolution approved the recent decisions of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly of America (Rabbinic arm of Conservative Judaism) which allowed women “a more equal role in ritual and synagogue life, with the understanding that the rabbi is the final religious authority in his congregation.”
Conservative synagogues are now to be encouraged “to explore and discuss the implications of these decisions and to implement them as individual circumstances permit.” At the religious services conducted throughout the convention, the women have been called up for the reading of the law and the recitation of the blessings on the appropriate days. Mrs M. Milton Terry of Elkins Park, Pa., was elected president of the League. The outgoing president was Mrs. Henry N. Rapaport.
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.
