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Community Relations
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To the Editor:
Jack Wertheimer [“A Jewish Contract With America,” May] is distressed by the continuing commitment of Jewish communal agencies to the separation of church and state. He argues that that commitment is likely to increase the level of tension between Jews and other Americans.
The American Jewish Committee is committed to preserving the separation of church and state precisely because it believes that the involvement of the state in matters of religion is likely to be a potent source of irreconcilable conflict, particularly in a multireligious democracy in which religion is taken seriously. This view is neither novel nor peculiar to Jewish communal organizations. It emerged from the long and bloody wars of religion that convulsed Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and profoundly influenced the authors of our Bill of Rights.
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