106
CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
September 13, 1963
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JUDAISM AND THE ISSUES
The Canadian Jewish Review is still the only Jewish publication in Canada printed in any language reaching the Jewish community which is not sponsored by a group or an organization and which is able to claim membership in the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
NEW YEAR GREETINGS
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NEW YEAR GREETINGS
DIAMOND TAXI ASSOCIATION LTD.
CANADA'S LARGEST TAXICAB ORGANIZATION
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Holiday Greetings From
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quires a high and strong wall of separation between church and state,
Of most pressing concern to the Jewish community is the task of keeping religion, out of public education. Whereas Protestants tend to view church-state relations primarily in terms of preventing appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican, and denying public funds to parochial schools, Jews are most intense about combatting such religious intrusions in public education as Bible-reading, released time, hymnB, prayers, and holiday observances (whether Christmas or Chanukah).
In many communities, the Jewish community has gone to court to challenge a practice which it regarded as unconstitutional and harmful to freedom of conscience. American Jewry believes that powerful influences have been brought to bear to punch holes into the wall of separation. In the view of the Jewish community, sectarian programs in public schools jeopardize the integrity of public education; reduce religious teachings to pallid platitudes; and create divisiveness and community tension.
Jews believe religion is vital, and that it can be best expressed in the home, the church, and the synagogue, and not in the public schools. In recent years, intensified legal and educational efforts have also been directed at compulsory Sunday closing laws which unfairly penalize Jewish Sabbath-observers, thus infringing religious liberty. To Jews, compulsory Sunday laws represent improper religious compulsion by the state.
SHARPER RELIGIOUS TENSIONS
In recent months, we have seen the sharpening of religious tension in America in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on prayer. But religious tension is not necessarily an evil; it may be the inevitable price of social change. Just as racial tension may reflect the passing of long-entrenched barriers of racial injustice, religious tension may reflect the growth of pluralism. We should not panic in the face of tension. Tension is not the same as bigotry.
Indeed, the religious tension we have experienced in the aftermath of the Prayer Decision will look like a Sunday School picnic in contrast to the stormy emotions which will be handed down by the Supreme Court in the coming months on issues of much greater sensitivity and delicacy than the Regents Prayer.
I hope, and pray, that the Jew. ish community will be equal to that test. We will need to educate and sensitize our people so that they will not be intimidated and confused by the public clamor which
will ensue, We will have to interpret our position to the community at large much more effectively than we have thus far. We can only make our position meaningful if, in addition to the Constitutional argument, we make clear to the American people that substantial segments Of the Jewish religious community, deeply committed to religious values, upholds the Supreme Court out of religious commitment.
Those of us who are religiously-committed, and especially the religious bodies of American Jewry, must make clear that we oppose religion in the public schools because of our reverence for religion, and because of our profound conviction that religious practices in the public schools degrade and cheapen, the integrity of religion. We will not convert our Christian neighbors to our position; but they will understand us much better than they do now.
This will require dialogue in every American community between us and Protestant and Catholic leaders. Such dialogue, as we learned in our study of "A Tale of Ten Cities," [published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and of which the writer is co-author] is still scarce in American life, but it is bound to spread. It must spread, lest religious conflict and invective mushroom. But in such a dialogue, Jewish religious representatives, both rabbis and religiously-committed laymen, must be a part of the Jewish group of participants. Many of these dialogues will touch on the deepest sources of theology and religious beliefs. In addition, many of the forward-looking and concerned Protestant and Catholic leaders of America are concerned with a host of issues which range far beyond the narrow confines of Jewish community relations.
MAJOR ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION AND ACTION
For example, we must be prepared to share a concern in such a dialogue for such issues as: war and peace; automation and medicare; migrant workers; capital punishment and prison reform, narcotic addiction and juvenile delinquency; the ethical failures of American life; the degradation of culture by television; the trends toward de-personalization and de-humanization which endanger personality; and many other far-ranging and agonizing issues of this magnitude.
If Jewish community relations has not stretched its rationale to encompass such matters, then it is imperative that our synagogue social action groups come to grips with these matters and play their proper part in any interfaith dialogues in American life.
For dialogue is necessary if we are to avoid misunderstanding each other's motives. But the best dialogue is only a preliminary to what is, still, the best kind of inter-faith relations:  working to-