The Religious Zionist Organization of America announced yesterday that it was establishing a “Council of Intellectuals” to combat “indifferent and negative attitudes” toward Israel and Zionism by Jewish students of the New Left. The announcement was made at the close of the RZA’s 62nd annual convention here by Rabbi Bernard Poupko, president, and Rabbi Bernard Bergman, chairman of the RZA. They said the new Council would be headed by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, professor of philosophy and Talmud at Yeshiva University and would consist of five to seven other academicians to be named at a later date. Rabbis Poupko and Bergman said the Council would have the task of developing specific programs to reach college and high school students so that they may become acquainted with the “invaluable precepts of Torah Judaism and the democratic ideals that are the principle of Israel.” The two rabbis warned that the “attitudes of New Left Jews can be terribly damaging to the American Jewish community and the cause of Israel.”
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