Judge Levinthal Charges Anti-zionist Group Repudiates American Democracy

Announcement of the proposed organization of an anti-Zionist group under the leadership of Dr. Louis Wolsey, of Philadelphia, “is but another manifestation of the irrational prejudice against our national movement which persists among a small minority of the Reform Rabbis of this country,” Judge Louis E. Levinthal, president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared in a statement made public here today.

In a rejoinder to the announced program of the new group organized under the name of “American Council for Judaism” in opposition to the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, Judge Levinthal declared: “By their disavowal of Zionism in America these “Protestrabbiner” (counterparts of the small group of rabbis who protested against Zionism in the days of Dr. Theodor Herzl, founder of the movement) have repudiated American democracy itself. To pretend that Zionism is opposed to Judaism, as these men charge, is obviously absurd. Zionism has its very roots in our Bible, and every page of our Prayer Book gives expression to the Jewish yearning for the restoration of the Land of Israel to the People of Israel.”