Alliance Will Consider Creating Agency to Handle Funds of Disbanded Synagogues

A resolution to determine the feasibility of creating a communal agency to receive funds of disbanded or relocated synagogues in changing urban areas was approved by delegates at the 27th annual convention of the Rabbinical Alliance of America here. Its new president, Rabbi Abraham Gross said that the action was taken yesterday in response to a feeling that funds of such congregations were being dissipated by congregational officials who were not necessarily representative of dissolved or relocated congregations. He said the agency, which would require a state charter, would be the first of its kind in the United States. The funds would be allocated by the proposed agency to aid creation of new congregations and to support of Orthodox educational congregations, according to Rabbi Gross, who succeeded Rabbi Bernard Weinberger as president of the right-wing Orthodox rabbinical group.

Another projected use of such funds would be reimbursement of rabbis of such congregations in situations where a diminishing congregation had been delinquent for years in payments of salary and other obligations, it was indicated,. Rabbi Weinberger said that such an agency would require approval of the New York State Attorney General’s office. Rabbi Benjamin Bomrind, who is a member of the bar, was named chairman of a committee to evaluate the legal aspects of the proposal and to report back to the Rabbinical Alliance.

A prediction that many of the present generation of rebellious Jewish youth who are now involved in campus uprisings, and aid all causes except Jewish ones, would eventually return to their Jewish heritage was made by Rabbi Nathan Bulman, of Young Israel of Far Rockaway. Rabbi Bulman, who is also dean of the Sara Schneirer High School for Girls in Brooklyn, told the 100 delegates that such youth would find that their identification with radical causes in the struggle for meaningful Jewish identification would prove to be an illusion.