Jewish Communal Workers in U.S. Urged to Act on Challenging Problems

The Jewish communal workers in the United States must face a series of problems challenging every Jew and every American today, and must act vigorously to help solve those problems, 1,000 members of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service were warned here last night.

The warning and the call to action were voiced by Jacob T. Zukerman of New York, president of the Conference, in an address here opening the organization’s five-day 66th annual assembly. Meeting in the West for the first time in its history, the Conference was Joined by a number of associate groups, including the National Association of Jewish Center Workers, the National Council for Jewish Education, the Association of Jewish Communal Relations Workers and the National Association of Jewish Homes for the Aged.

Noting that “the whole face of America and the rest of the world has been altered by the impact of revolutionizing forces” and that “we in Jewish life have been similarly affected by the changing panorama.” Mr. Zukerman said:

“We who work so closely with Jewish families really did not need the very challenging statistics on Jewish intermarriage to make us aware of its effect upon the lives not only of those who intermarry but of their families. We who care for Jewish children, or who teach them or play with them or live with them, and often for them, have always been conscious of the needs of many of these children for Jewish training and education. We who have worked with immigrant and uprooted families have long been familiar with problems of relocation and rehabilitation.

“Yet in these critical times, when our fellow Jews behind the Iron Curtain are being subjected to more refined techniques of cultural genocide, when others of our brothers who have built for themselves a homeland in Israel, a State which has provided sanctuary and hope, are menaced by the machinations of a Nasser, when many thousands of African Jews must be helped to find a way to a new life, when the very continuity of Jewish life is threatened by the danger not alone of intermarriage but of indifference to Jewish identify–then we, as Jews and as communal workers, must assume a greater share of responsibility for the future of Jewish existence.

CALLED TO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO ENVIRONMENT OF JEWISH LIVING

“We must do so,” Mr. Zukerman stressed, “regardless of the kind of Jews we are–whether religious or secular, whether Hebraists or Yiddishists or English speaking, whether Zionist or non-Zionist, whether we have hitherto expressed our Jewishness through our Jewish studies, through our service to the Jewish community, or if only by our acceptance of ourselves as part of a Jewish religious group or people or ethnicity. We who serve the Jewish community and who so often have an opportunity to provide leadership, should be fully prepared to give of ourselves to the environment of Jewish living, cultural as well as emotional and economic.”

The Jewish community, Mr. Zukerman urged, must be helped “to face the realities of the accelerated social revolution” in every area of activity, from the fight for equality for Negroes, to the war against poverty, to the struggle for implementing the rights to live in dignity and security for all people.

A report proposing action concerning the impact of changing race relations on Jewish communal services will be presented to the Conference next Thursday, on the closing day of the assembly, Mr. Zukerman said. Altogether, there will be 100 sessions held during the Conference. Some, like last night’s opening meeting, will be general sessions. Others will be workshops, meetings of the associated groups, seminars and divisional discussions.

DR. KAPLAN SPEAKS ON PURPOSE OF JEWISH SOCIAL WORK

Dr. Mordecai M; Kaplan, noted Jewish spiritual leader and founder of the Reconstructionist movement, told the assembled Jewish communal workers that every form of Jewish social work, whether carried on in a professional or lay capacity, has to be dominated by the overall purpose of contributing to the creative survival of the Jewish people.

“Central to all efforts at Jewish readjustment is the need of clearly defining the status of the Jews in relation to the rest of the world,” he said. “That status should be based upon the assumption that the dispersion of the Jews must henceforth be accepted as a permanent condition. That does not mean, however, that we can afford to float around freely among the nations as a formless, agglomerate of individuals.”

Dr. Kaplan stressed that “Judaism required at least one place in the world where it may be the primary one for its adherents. Judaism cannot maintain its character as a civilization, nor can the Jewish people maintain its sense of religio-cultural unity without a homeland,” he said, adding that “the pursuit of activities to ensure the stability and security of the State of Israel as indispensable to the survival of the Jewish people throughout the world.”