Our Reform Movement has been at the forefront of the North American Jewish community in mobilizing efforts for Ethiopian Jewish relief both through
"Project REAP" and "Operation Moses." During the past year, we have joyously witnessed the return to Israel of a large portion of the Ethiopian Jewish
community through "Operation Moses," and we applaud the continuing efforts to absorb them into the mainstream of Israeli life.
One of the basic teachings of our tradition is "All Israel is responsible for one another" (Talmud, Shevuot 39a). This principle is described in
God's command, "If there is a needy person among you do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your kin. Rather, you must open your hand and lend
whatever is sufficient..." (Deuteronomy 15:7-8). As we strive to fulfill this responsibility to our fellow Jews, we recognize that we have not completed
our task for our Argentinean brothers and sisters in Argentina. Need our help now.
We are appalled at the tragedy now befalling the remnant of Polish Jewry. This fragment of a once great community now finds itself the victim of an
organized, government-initiated and sponsored anti-Semitic campaign thinly veiled as opposition to "international Zionism". Experience teaches us that this
is a distinction without a difference.
The former Soviet Union is the home of millions of Jews, only a small number of whom are involved in any form of Jewish religious or communal life. For the
time being, it appears that the vast majority of them will remain in the former Soviet Union. It is critical for the health and well-being of world Jewry
that the Jews who remain in the former Soviet Union - the second largest Jewish community in the Diaspora - be reintegrated into the world Jewish
community.
"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept...." Those waters of ancient Babylon are the rivers of Iraq today. Today by these same rivers in Iraq and
neighboring Syria, our Jewish brethren still sit and weep.
WHEREAS we are deeply concerned about the plight of our brethren in Arab lands; and
WHEREAS we are aware that Jews are forbidden to leave Syria and Iraq and thus become prisoners in their native countries; and
The 46th General Assembly of the UAHC is profoundly troubled by the steadily mounting harassment of Jewish leaders in the USSR. The recent arrests, secret
trials and convictions of these leaders in Leningrad and Moscow on the ground of "contact with foreign powers" clearly indicates the avowed intention of
Soviet authorities to seal off its Jewish community from any relationship with their co-religionists throughout the world and to liquidate their spiritual
and cultural resources.
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