Delegates to the annual meeting of the New York Federation of Reform Synagogues yesterday urged all synagogues, churches and representatives of religious institutions to ban “bingo and similar games as a means of maintaining the house of God.” The delegates adopted a resolution calling “organized and continuous gambling” as a means of fund-raising by religious institutions a peril to the “teaching of worthwhile values.
“The synagogue must call forth the best in its people, stand for the noblest kind of living and elicit the highest expression of sacrifice and devotion, ” the resolution stated. “When bingo and like games of chance become the source of synagogue support they will also become the reason for the lessening of synagogue influence and the cause for the decline of the synagogue as the spiritual center of our communities and the lives of the people who dwell in them.”
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.
