April 28, 1911
This was part of a long piece regarding Jewish uproar over plans to classify Jews as “Asiatics” at the First Universal Races Congress, an anti-racism conference held at the University of London in 1911.
Of course no truly educated man or woman has any racial prejudice. But… the ignorant people, and even those who are only half educated, are in the majority, and there is great prejudice among such people just now against “Asiatics and Africans.” Would Booker Washington have been murderously assaulted by a New York hooligan if there were not any prejudice against “Africans” in America? … It is quite true that Mahomet, Jesus, Confucius, Zoroaster and Buddha have all been Asiatics. But the California workman does not care a single dry straw for all the founders of religions when it comes to industrial competition, and he would do his level best to keep Asiatics out of the country. Do American Jews wish to be classified as Asiatics? I trow not!
Jan. 4, 1963
Bay Area Jewish organizations supported a 1963 effort by state teachers to get rid of school prayer.
Jewish community relations agencies, national and local, this week hailed as a significant forward step a resolution passed by the California Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO) over the week-end demanding that recitation of prayers in the public schools be eliminated. …
Gratified by the action of the teachers organization, Lawrence Goldberg, chairman of the church-state sub-committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council and chairman of the local chapter of the American Jewish Congress, said:
“We are encouraged by the growing public awareness that the Prayer Decision of the United States Supreme Court was in no manner an act of hostility toward religion. On the contrary, history teaches us that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion
“Two of the truly great contributions that America has made to western civilization are the concept of separation of church and state, and the free public school system …”