For Better Communication

Two of the nation's major Jewish organizations last week urged American Judaism to step up communications with both Christianity and the Negro ghettos. There was a real point to the exhortations, issued by Conservatism's United Synagogue of America and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, principal voice of Reform Judaism. Of late, there has been a marked deterioration in Jewish relations with white churches and black communities.

A major reason for the lukewarm quality of Jewish-Christian relations was last spring's Arab-Israeli war. Jewish leaders have charged that the majority of Christian churchmen either remained silent, or failed to protest strongly when Arab nations threatened to annihilate Israel. The Synagogue Council of America, chief coordinating body of U.S. Judaism, scored "the tolerance of some Western opinion toward these Arab threats of genocide." Nonetheless, at last week's meetings of the United Synagogue in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., and the U.A.H.C. in Montreal, the consensus was that current tension should be an in centive to dialogue. "Let us not behave toward the church as if it had reinstituted the Inquisition," counseled U.A.H.C. President Maurice Eisendrath. "Not every Christian whose conscience compels reservations regarding Israel's policies is an anti-Semite."

To some rabbis, the misunderstandings that have arisen over the Mideast war indicate that even the best-intentioned Christians lack an understanding of certain concepts basic to Judaism. The churches' failure to appreciate Israel's plight, they argue, reflects an inability to comprehend the Jewish sense of peoplehood and the primordial place that the vision of Israel as the homeland for God's people occupies in the Jewish mind. Instead of concentrating on how the two faiths can jointly combat moral evils in the world, dialogue might better be served by greater stress on the fundamentals of Jewish belief.

Structured for Conflict. Judaism's second area of concern stems from charges by Black Power militants that Jewish businessmen are exploiting Negroes in the slums. Most delegates felt that such statements speak for only a small minority of Negro opinion, and represent not so much anti-Semitism as a lashing out at Whitey. At both meetings, there was overwhelming agreement that American Jewry should involve itself even more in the Negro's struggle. Howard Danzig, executive director of a suburban Detroit synagogue, told the Conservative convention: "Unfortunately, in Detroit as in other cities, the Jewish presence in the predominantly Negro areas is usually that of merchant or landlord. The situation is economically structured for conflict."

In one resolution, the United Synagogue warned that "We should not fall into the traps set by anti-Semites and condemn all Jewish landlords as 'slum lords.' They that are such we do condemn, because they act immorally, as do non-Jewish slum lords." But "where special problems involving Negro-Jewish relationships arise, we urge our congregations to pay added attention to their solution." One proposal discussed at both conventions: the setting of practical standards of business ethics for Jewish landlords and entrepreneurs doing business in the ghettos.

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