Can an American Be a Jew?

Must American Jews eventually lose their cultural, ethnic and religious identity? To discuss this and other questions of the status of the Jew in the U.S.. leaders of the American Jewish Congress and the Israeli government met last week in Jerusalem to hold what was termed "a dialogue." But the dialogue quickly became a dispute.

New Jersey's Dr. Joachim Prinz, president of the congress, began by declaring: "American Jews believe they will survive as a group in a country which is traditionally a nation of groups. Those who do not accept these facts will never succeed in understanding the uniqueness of American Jewry." Unwilling to accept this claim was Israel's Premier David Ben-Gurion, who has often declared that Jews, wherever they might be in the world, owe their first allegiance to Israel. American Jews, he predicted, will be swallowed up as the U.S. evolves into an integrated nation in the next ten to 50 years. "The focus of Jewish life throughout the world is Israel," he said. "Take it away and I doubt if anything binds Jewish people in all continents. Isn't there a danger that many American Jews will say. 'What have I to do with Jewishness? I'm an American.' " Ben-Gurion's position brought quick, pointed retorts from some U.S. Jewish leaders. Stanley H. Lowell, chairman of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, who was at the conference, talked back to the Premier in the most direct terms: "You aren't the only answer to Jewish living. Jewish creativity and Jewish survival." In New York, Rabbi Elmer Berger. executive vice president of the anti-Zionist American Council for Ju Judaism, criticized the Premier for his "predilection for interfering with the destinies of all Jews." Said Rabbi Berger: "Judaism, we believe, is a universal -- not a national -- religion." Declared Professor Nelson Glueck of Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College: "Possibly I cannot speak for all Jewry in this country, but I can speak for Reform Jewry, and I say it is totally and diametrically opposed to Ben-Gurion's philosophy. His feelings reflect the kind of world in which he grew up -- where minority groups were not true members of their countries. We in America feel that we are no less good Jews than are the citizens of Israel."

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