Premier Golda Meir, a guest at a meeting of the National Religious Party yesterday, staunchly defended Israel’s Supreme Court whose verdicts on questions of state and religion have often aroused the ire of the Orthodox religious establishment. Mrs. Meir said she was not always happy with the verdicts “but we shall not tell our judges what to do and what to say. We have nothing to be ashamed of in our courts.” Mrs. Meir devoted most of her remarks to extolling the partnership of the NRP and her Labor Party in Israel’s coalition governments, past and present, Though a minority party, the NRP holds the balance of power on which the coalition depends. Critics have charged the Labor Party with giving in to NRP demands in disputes involving religious conformity and have accused the NRP of resorting to political blackmail to force its views on the government.
But according to Mrs. Meir, “there is no way but for both Labor and the NRP to go hand-in-hand,” She said that future historians would see that “no one has lost anything from this continuing partnership.” Mrs. Meir dwelt at some length on the problem of Soviet Jewry and the Jewish struggle on their behalf. She said she welcomed the “alertness” of Israeli youth on the subject but remarked that “it is not only the youth that carries out actions in this respect,” adding “much more is done. There are those who cry and those who do.” Mrs. Meir repeated her earlier denunciation of the recent bombings of Soviet government offices in New York which has been attributed in some quarters to militant Jewish youths. She said that such acts only play into Soviet hands.
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.
