Community Relations Council Assured That Protestant Stand
on Israel Hasn't Changed Despite Church Statement
CLEVELAND (JTA) — An of- recommended, in this connection,
ficial of the National Council of the restoration of the "liberal"
Churches and last weekend that coalition" of the early 1960s —
his organization's recent policy Jews, blacks, labor, intellectual,
statement opposing American sale religious groups and ethnic mm-
of jets to Israel did not reflect any ority groups—that proved effective
fundamental change in Protestant in instigating civil rights pro-
attitudes toward the Jewish state. gress.
That coalition "eroded at its
The Rev. Dr. David R. Hunter,
deputy secretary general of the base—where the backlashes oc-
curred,"
Band contended, and the
National Council, attributed the
resolution adopted recently by the NJCRAC's task is to reunite those
National Council's general board forces so that each "can be made
to concern over a rising Middle to understand the indivisibility of
its problems." The alternative, he
East arms race.
Dr. Hunter, who addressed the said, was continued polarization.
Theodore R. Mann, president of
annual Plenary meeting of the Na-
tional Jewish community Relations the Jewish Community Relations
Advisory Council, expressed for "a Council of Greater Philadelphia,
more realistic and fair resolution" told the plenary meeting that the
when the National Council's board Jewish community has an "over-
reconsiders the issue in Septem- riding obligation" to assist in the
relocation of Jewish residents and
ber.
NJCRAC concluded its four-day businessmen who are harassed in
parley Sunday with the adoption high crime and blighted areas and
of a series of "policy guidelines" want to leave.
This would require Jewish
for its constituent agencies and the
community funds along with
elections of chairman • Albert E.
government
and foundation sub-
Arent of Washington, D.C.. a tax
sidies, Mann said. lie reported
attorney and member of George-
that
most
of
the 400 Jewish mer-
town University's graduate facul-
chants located In such districts
ty. Arent succeeded Jordan C.
Band of Cleveland.
The church group's controver-
sial resolution had asked that the
United States withhold planes for
Israel and "seek progressive re-
duction of arms as part of a Mid-
dla East peace settlement.
The "third Ku Klux Klan mania"
Speaking at the same sympos-
ium, on Christian-Jewish rela-
in the nation's history has come to
a close, according to a new report
tionships, Philip Scharper, edi-
tor of a Catholic publishing by the Race Relations Information
Center, which credits the Anti-
house and member of the U.S.
Catholic Bishop's Secretariat on
Defamation League of Bnai Brith
with a major contribution to the
Relations Between Catholic and
Jews, said that the "thrust to-
Klan's current collapse.
ward participatory democracy"
Concentrating on North Carolina,
was accelerating a decentral-
the report asserts that Klan mem-
ization in church authority with
bership has dropped to 600 from a
"collegialty" on the local level peak of 6- to 7,000 just four years
opening ways for greater Cath-
ago.
olic-Jewish dialogue and coop-
Written by Dwayne Walls, a
eration.
reporter for the Charlotte Observer,
Scharper cited the statement of the report states: "If North Caro-
the American bishops "affirming lina is an accurate standard—and
the central importance" of the there is evidence that it is — the
state of Israel to the Jewish peo- nation's third Ku Klux Klan mania
ple," an action, he noted, taken is ended."
"without waiting for Vatican in-
The Race Relations Information
itiative or encouragement" as an Center is a private, nonprofit organ-
instance of Catholic response "to ization that gathers and distrib-
the needs of American Jews who utes information about race rela-
had been dissillusioned by the tions in the United States.
comparative silence of Christian
The center is the successor to
leaders" just prior to the Six-Day
the Southern Education Report-
War.
ing Service, established in 1954.
NJCRAC urged that its consti-
The material on the KKK is con-
apent agencies initiate programs
tained in its May 1970 special
to interpret to Jews in suburbia
report — "The Klan: Collapsed
the "self-defeating" nature of gov-
and Dormant."
ernment housing and highway poli-
The report cautions that a large
cies that are reinforcing racial
separations between the inner city
and its surrounding suburbs.
Describing such programs as a
"major responsibility" of Jewish
community relations agencies, a
"policy guideline" adopted at
NJCRAC's annual plenary meet-
ing here stressed a need for Jew-
ish suburban dwellers to recognize
"the interdependence of city and
suburb" and to work to reverse
government p of i c i es creating
"apartheid" in the nation.
The council's statement chal-
lenged an administration view that
de facto discrimination is beyond
federal control and warned that
continuing the pattern of "two so-
cieties"—blacks and the poor in
the inner city and affluent whites
in the suburbs — would mean
"economic death" for the cities
and doom for the cause of racial
equality.
At an earlier session during
the NJCRAC's weekend conven-
tion, delegates were told that
American Jewry has a special
responsibility for re-enlisting the
"substantial number of Jews"
in "Middle America who have
"grown hostile to the blacks and
the young."
Band said that "If we cannot
convince our own constitutents of
the relevance of Jewish religious
tradition to the struggle to end
racism and want, we can hardly
expect to convince others. Band
in Philadelphia—about half the
number of six years ago—do not
regard the danger to their phys-
ical security as rising out of
black anti-Semitism. "They are,"
he said, unfortunate victims of
society ills.
A more hopeful outlook on the
future of the central city was out-
lined by Philip M. Klutznick, for-
mer president of Bnai Birth.
Citing a new study by the Com-
mittee for Economic Development,
a business-sponsored group of 200
industry and university leaders,
Klutznick, co-chairman of its re-
search and policy committee, dis-
closed a "substantial increase" in
the movement of black and pover-
ty-income families to the suburbs
—more than 10 times that of the
early 1960s—and a corresponding
decline in the population density
in central poverty areas. Parallel-
ing these trends has been an in-
crease in the proportion of high-
income families returning to the
central city, he said. Klutznik
described these trends as offering
"some hopeful signs" for revital-
izing the nation's central cities.
"The decay of the inner city and
racial polarization between city
and suburb may not be as wide-
spread or irreversible as some
have claimed," he said.
An NJCRAC policy statement
adopted warned that a "well-or-
ganized drive" for governments
funds to assist church—operated
schools has become a "growing
threat" to the public school sys-
tem. It particularly criticized the
use of public funds to "purchase
secular services" from religious
schools. This practice, initiated in
a number of states in recent years,
generally provides state funds to
pay part of the salaries of paro-
chial school instructors who teach
secular subjects.
NJCRAC called the practice "In-
distinguishable in fact and effect
from state financing of religious
education." It contended that this
and other new methods of seeking
state aid—such as the system in
which parents of school children
are free to select a public or pri-
vate school for their children, pay-
ing for it with a state "voucher"-
-were adding to a "growth in-
fringement" on the Constitutional
principle of separation of church
and state.
KKK. Reported at All-Time Low
— but It Has Stiff Competition
part of the KKK's decline in popu-
larity and membership throughout
the South may be due to the polit-
ical rise of George Wallace, and
that "it is competing today with
dozens of other right-wing orga-
nizations, ranging from the- John
Birch Society to the White Citizens
Councils."
"If some of these organizations
cannot claim a great deal more
legitimacy and respectability than
the Ku Klux Klan, at least they
are not hampered by the Klan's
ugly history of violence. They have
steadily chipped away at the Klan's
recruiting reservoir because they
professed to offer would-be Klans-
men a voice and a forum. They
have, in fact, done a better job of
proselyting than some of society's
truly legitimate elements—the or-
ganized church, for example."
The report asserts only that the
Klan is dormant, not dead. It has
risen to significant power three
times in American history; and
the center report ends by saying
there is "room for some deter-
mined missionary work by church-
men and fraternal organization
willing to help eliminate the threat
of a fourth Klan ever developing."
Do not waste the hours of day-
light in listening to that which you
may read by night.
—Sir Wiliam Osier
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
10—Friday, July 3, 1970
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