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[American Jewish Committee 58th Annual Meeting]

This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.

Unidentified audio. Identified audio based on individuals present.
Recording begins abruptly.

Morris Abram, president of The American Jewish Committee speaks about hope. He makes reference to two attendees, Martin Luther King and Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. Abram speaks of both men's work for civil rights.

He speaks of the Civil Rights leadership and of "astonishing willingness [of African Americans] to forgive the wrong when righted."

He says that the only valid test is absolute equality and that on that test we still fail. He speaks of the tensions caused by the struggles for equality, but reiterates the importance of non-violent demonstration. Abram mentions the support Jewish Americans have shown for African Americans. he notes that despite both groups struggles, the African American's experience with slavery sets them apart. He speaks of the differences of their struggles - African Americans have been the only minority to have been denied access to the American educational system.

Abrams moves on to speak of the Jewish people's ties to Germany - he says that despite the atrocities of the past guilt is personal and can not be applied to a nation.
He also speaks about forthcoming conclusion of the Second Vatican Council and the relationship of Catholics and Jews.
He finally speaks contrasts the Soviet Union's concept of human rights to America's.

Ends abruptly.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 70700
Municipal archives id: T1248

This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
My theme tonight is hope I would almost say expectation it is certainly not wishful thinking my theme is inspired from my experiences as a Southerner for many years and from the events in which I have participated in the last eighteen months as president of the American Jewish Committee my theme is reinforced in a personally gratifying sense to me tonight as I see on this day yes two old friends of mine one the grandson of slaves and the other the grandson of Confederate Veterans both residents of Atlanta each of my friends fought publicly in his own way for the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of one nine hundred sixty four Dr Martin Luther King of Atlanta Georgia and may I have been Allen Jr of Atlanta Georgia. There is a central truth in the science and the art of human relations there is no way no way to demonstrate to another feeling thinking human being that he should have less human rights than another therefore if my rights are to be protected and respected by another I must to court the same to him like many other simple truths this has been difficult for all of us to see and for all of us to accept in a certain but fundamental sense Dr King has educated all of us in this most important aspect of life it remains however at the time ask and responsibility of leaders in all areas in church and in voluntary association and in political life to activate this principle in practice. As we have come to accept the principle of equality we have been able to assess the price of past prejudice and discrimination we know too that this price is often played in the time after man memories of ancient wrongs have always tended to distort the present and to impair the future if the Negro in this country chose only to remember the past this country could never have a happy future the genius of negro leadership and one of the great qualities of that race has been it's astonishing willingness to forgive the wrong when righted but my friends the wrongs have not nearly all been right whites fluting myself tend to compare the present state of relations with the past and to rejoice in self congratulations under the Constitution and by the ideals of our faith is the only valid test is that of absolute equality in every single area of life and on that task we still face a long arduous days liable for us as a Negro struggles and strives and attains full equality pre-condition of that equality is a feeling of worth dignity and hope displacing in the neighbor all the sense of uselessness and despair now progress in this area creates tensions along the prime Negro seeking to pass to a sense of personal value and if proclaimed rights and opportunities will and should frequently contradict old damages and challenge directly all relationships. So long as this is done in a nonviolent framework this very testing and the tension that it produces are the essentials and the proof for Riyad occasion and progress for my friends no man no man can be an equal until he thinks he is and no on motivated family can escape poverty until he has conquered first despair frequently this productive tension will cause strains asked for example between Jews and negroes a strange circumstance perhaps considering the overwhelming support the Jewish congregations as well as a religious leaders have always felt for the Negro struggle for full equality in the frustration produced by the tension some Jews may begin to compare invidiously the negroes development in this country with their own some may think and others will say My father suffered prejudice and discrimination yet we have succeeded Why is the Negro still so far behind let such questions not go unanswered the curse of slavery destroyed every vestige of Negro life and identity which have been the red dented of sauce for the Jew under all tyrants and in all generations yet was not education for my own father and thousands like him had very little the sense of family and group identity that kept alive hope and open the doors of education an opportunity and barred the enervating sense of despair moreover of all the minorities in the United States the Negro has been the only one which has never had access to the America the American public school system. The challenge of adversity for the Journal and the negro However I have created a response in each group each has a strong people which are survive through adaptation to grow the adaptation was different in each case each people has proved its capacity to endure to adapt and to contribute to the whole American society Moreover as a minority each serves as a barometer constantly testing the help of the social system and the validity and the effectiveness of the Constitution and may not ever forget that it is the reading of this parameter with respect to the least of American society that test the soundness of the system and its faithfulness to its principles now during these last few years while the Negro has been coming to terms with the United States but Joe has become to terms with Germany in soldiering the jewel hands in a very real sense adopted the principles of charity which the Negro has accorded his fellow citizen in the United States the Journal and the German are intertwined in history recently the Jews celebrated two thousand years of history in the Rhineland just this past week we memorialize the twentieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and that my card dance of death in which almost half of our people were wiped out in the middle of the twentieth century I hold I hold that the criminal Nazi state was responsible as well as others to all this monumental tragedy but I do not believe that the German people as a whole for all time a guilt or guilt is person never collected it attaches to the man and no more to his people than to his family. Now many Germans have asked how long shall we be forced to remember the past and it Jews have asked when shall we ever be able to forget the past it seems that to reach the answer must be the same let the past be remembered so long as it can instruct the future but and I remember him so the past let us never visit the sands of one on to another know those of the fathers on to the sons in such a spirit Israel has real stablished diplomatic relations with Germany and the American Jewish Committee particularly through having Angle has worked for the rich democratic reeducation of Germany and the committee has striven very hard for reconciliation of German and Jew on the basis of the redemptive quality of justice in this context a war crime trials must continue just reparations must be paid to all of victims not just to those who have the opportunity to escape from behind the Iron Curtain prior to one nine hundred fifty three an effort in which our own Jacob Blaustein has played a major role for two decades Israel is a living proof of the value of looking to the future here is a people from poems to men and women whose fathers have fled from persecution even today they sleep with their rifles cocked and loaded against foreign enemies who are sworn to new massacres and the deprivation of vital water resources out of pure spite yet in the day time Israel works and builds in the expectation of peace and progress it does not nurse all wounds and old grudges indeed it extends a hand of friendship to the Arab and technical aid to underdeveloped countries around the globe. Contrast this attitude with that of so many of its neighbors who live only in the past build for aggression and spend energy as in hate while permitting their own children to be raised in ignorance and want myths might US wealth of oil how much better for all would it be for an Arab program to be based on reconciliation peaceful development and the disavowal of war would that a strong and resilient Arab people who built the Alhambra in Europe the Great Library in Alexandria and the mathematics we call our own were turned now there in a just towards the further development of their own to long neglected inheritance this September the Jew and the Catholic should have an opportunity to rejoice over the fair solution of a troublesome issue Vatican Council to conclude its work and presumably its that the ration on religious liberty and Catholic Jewish relations the opinion of the vast majority of the church fathers has been unmistakably registered on the side of understanding and justice and reemphasized only last week in the triumphal experience of Judge Proskauer in Rome however as in all institutions there exists in Rome a tiny minority who preferred to remember only the past and who strive to strangle the future at its birth because of civic unity and building of trusting and happy relations between Catholics and Jews were claimed by Pope John when he convened the council now await the final outcome some have said that Catholics have no role and should develop no interest in these matters that these are Catholic problems and concerns. But this is no more true than to say that the race relations problem of the United States is the problem of the white man or the Negro Problem is the problem of the Negro all that and a cemetery them is exclusive problem of the Jew the problem of prejudice and the opportunity of understanding is everybody's business all of the time. Thanks. To church. Has now a great opportunity to join the Protestant world in removing all sauce of bitterness and prejudice and our grave impediment to good human relations I know that the central message of the Catholic Church is brotherhood and love and that the council about resoundingly preliminary votes have made clear that that is its purpose to hear now the choices whether to seize the future or to hang on to an outworn minority tradition neither the Catholic nor the German. Can afford such as sorry self-indulgence on the largest stage of political history we witness today a continuing struggle between the philosophies of two great power systems in the human relations forum of the United Nations and we are honored to have here tonight Ambassador Lopez who is the chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission I have encountered the representatives of the Soviet system in the revealing context of liberty and freedom here we and they start from different beginnings they see the world through a telescope which makes a state large in the individual small we use the same telescope look at the same world but see things very differently this is because we have turned the telescope around and that's the individual is a large state a small. To wash human rights or derive from nature or from nature's God and belong to all men from birth and because man is man the other system regard to human rights as something derived from the state as a gift or a privilege creasing with a soul be it seemed to feel that men should have certain of these rights but they still parcel them out conferring each is a special dispensation carefully and deliberately measured neither system can of course order the other to change its philosophy I have observed a dramatic and decided change however in the way the Soviets are beginning to look at the quantum of human rights which the human personality should enjoy this year in Geneva in discussing an international convention on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance so be attache told me that fish areas government's attitude was positive not negative towards this proposal through Soviet definition of freedom does differ in many respects from our own because of a difference in philosophy as to the origin of the right never the last progress is being made and the United Nations forum is rubbing many abrasive differences and this area into a reasonably satisfactory accommodation.

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