Good Will Meeting in Philadelphia Initiates Harmony Movement

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

A step toward the promotion of good will between the Jewish and non-Jewish residents of Philadelphia was taken when a group of prominent Jewish and non-Jewish residents of this city met at a good will banquet in the Jay Cook Junior High School.

Three hundred representatives of both faiths attended and heard a group of speakers urge the importance of stressing in their daily lives the common bonds which exist between both groups.

Although good will dinners have been taking place throughout the country, the dinner was the first of its kind in the local community and inaugurated a series to be held in various sections in the course of the next few months.

The speakers at the dinner were Dr. Floyd Tomkins, President of the Philadelphia Federation of Churches, Dr. E. A. Palmquist, Rabbi Max D. Klein, President of the Philadelphia Board of Jewish Ministers, Rabbi Mortimer J. Cohen, of the Congregation Beth Sholom, Rev. Carl Agee, of the Good Will Committee of the Federated Council of Churches.

The keynote of the evening was sounded by Rabbi Cohen who declared: “What should most be stressed here this evening, is the need to recognize that the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us. It is these uniting ties that must ever be held before our eyes and our children’s’ eyes. All of us are faced by the common struggle for a greater measure of justice and righteousness in human society. All of us seek to create a better and happier world in which to live. All of us see in our America the light that shall lead the nations of the earth toward a better day. Do we not all seek the kingdom of God upon earth? Each of us is working to a higher vision in his own way. The Christian by way of his Master, the Jew by way of his Father. Though our ways differ, our goal is the same. As fellow travelers we should strengthen each other through tolerance.”