Newspaper Page Text
Rabbi angry
at the ACLU
by Ben GaUob
An Illinois Reform rabbi has
told m congregant that he was
considering resigning his member
ship in the American Civil Lib
erties Union because he believed
that the ACLU defense of the
American Nazi Party's “right" to
stage a march in Skokie made “a
mockery" of the free speech
principle to which the ACLU is
dedicated.
The exchange of correspond
ence between Rabbi Robert I.
Marx of Highland Park and the
congregant, Alexander Polikoff,
was reprinted in a bulletin of the
Late News
NEW YORK, (JTA)-A
number of Jewish organi
zational leaders met with
American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) key officials this
month, at the request of the
ACLU, to discuss a drop of
Jewish support because of the
ACLU defense of First
Amendment claims of Nazis.
Seymour Samet, director of
the American Jewish Com
mittee’s domestic affairs
department, said that the
ACLU officials sought the
cooperation of the Jewish
leaders in understanding that
the ACLU is committed to
defending the rights of all
groups, not Just those
objectionable to Jews.
Central Synagogue, a leading
Reform congregation in New York
City. Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman,
rabbi of the Central Synagogue,
wrote that he personally concurred
with Rabbi Marx's position.
The legal battle of the Nazis to
overturn an injunction against a
demonstration in Skokie, home of
several thousand survivors of the
Holocaust, has been tied up in the
courts. The issue is currently
before the Illinois State Supreme
Court.
Polikoff argued that the ACLU
was "a staunch defender of the
individual liberties that we all—as
Americans and Jews—rightly per
ceive to be an essential part of
decent human society.” He added
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that while the ACLU could not be
right “all the time in the view of all
~of its supporters," he nevertheless
felt that he and Rabbi Marx would
agree that “it has a very good
batting average" and deserved the
continued support of Jews despite
its decision to represent the Nazis
in Skokie.
ACLU officials, admitting that a
substantial number of Jewish
members have resigned from the
organization over the Skokie issue,
have indicated the ACLU intends
to continue its legal service to the
Nazis.
Rabbi Marx continued that “the
heart of my concern is my
conviction that the Nazi cause does
not represent a test of free speech
but rather represents a satanic
force unlike any that the world has
ever experienced."
He declared that, in defending
Nazis, the ACLU “makes a god of
freedom of speech, while debasing
other civil liberties—including the
freedom to live." He said what the
Nazis are saying now in Skokie has
already been manifested in action
and that action is genocide.
He declared that if the ACLU
decided to refuse to defend Nazis,
it would “by no means abandon its
principles. The Nazis have been
uniquely condemned by the
world's tribunal. They were found
guilty of crimes against humanity."
Stressing that the United States
fought a war to defeat the Nazi
regime and its “evil program,"
Rabbi Marx said that to defend the
Nazis now “is to make a mockery
of the very principles of freedom of
speech which the ACLU has so
valiantly upheld in the past." He
added that “to compare the
defense of Nazis to the defense of
other controversial causes is to
declare history blind anAustice
insane." W
He also posed the question: “Do
I have the right even tacitly to
foster the playing of logic games
when human lives are the penalty
for losing?"
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