Resolution Adopted by the CCAR
On Preventing Nuclear Holocaust
Adopted by the CCAR at the 95th Annual Convention of
the Central Conference of American Rabbis
Grossingers, New York, June 18-21, 1984
The Central Conference of American Rabbis, from its inception, has taken seriously
the Jewish obligation to “seek peace and pursue it.” We have sought to apply the
prophetic vision to the urgent contemporary issues of war and peace. Thus, we have
supported efforts to achieve effective international treaties to limit armaments and, in recent
years, to speak out for stable arms controls to curb the threat of nuclear annihilation.
We have expressed our growing alarm at unchecked nuclear proliferation and expressed our horror at both the dangers and the intolerable waste caused by the nuclear
arms race, which is exhausting much of the world’s resources and impoverishing hundreds
of millions of our fellow human beings.
In 1982, we urged action toward a bilateral freeze of the testing, production, and
deployment of nuclear weapons, and in 1983, we called upon the United States to ratify
the SALT II treaty, negotiate further reductions in nuclear arsenals, complete a
comprehensive test ban treaty, and declare a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons.
Fear of nuclear war has again substantially increased during the past year as the
United States and the Soviet Union have poured billions of dollars into new weapons
production and brought all arms reduction negotiations to a halt. The moral issues
of the nuclear arms race have been subjected to a searching scrutiny, dramatized by the
pastoral letter of the American Roman Catholic bishops and by the UAHC Religious
Action Center’s outstanding publication, Preventing the Nuclear Holocaust: A Jewish Response.
However, the momentum of the nuclear arms race has not yet been reversed. Negotiations
languish, and an entirely new and more destabilizing generation of awesome weaponry
is now being introduced. Both superpowers are developing a new generation of destabilizing, deadly accurate, “first-strike” weapons that increase the likelihood of nuclear
war. The history of attempts at arms control in the twentieth century tells us conclusively
that lasting progress in arms control cannot succeed in an atmosphere of military confrontation and hate, but only if there is ongoing progress toward increased
mutual understanding and trust.
The deployment of such highly accurate weapons, capable of destroying the land-based
missiles that constitute the base of the Soviet nuclear deterrent might pressure
the USSR to adopt a “launch on warning” policy or, in time of crisis, even to launch
a preemptive strike. Such weapons are contrary to America’s security interests.
Therefore, be it resolved
that the Central Conference of American Rabbis:
1. Call upon our congregations in the United States and Canada to intensify their
efforts at peace education, with special emphasis on study courses based on the UAHC
Religious Action Center’s excellent book, Preventing a Nuclear Holocaust,
published in March 1983. We urge their forming and participating in interreligious
coalitions to strive for arms control and for a reversal of the nuclear arms race.
As Jews, we are called upon to witness to God’s dominion and to vouchsafe the future
of all the children of God. The Central Conference of American Rabbis suggests each member
consider implementing the program of “Rainbow Sign: A Jewish Project to Prevent Nuclear
Holocaust”;
2. Urge the United States Senate to ratify the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty,
the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, and SALT II–all of which were negotiated between
the Soviet Union and the United States and agreed to and signed by both governments;
3. Call on the United States and the USSR to renew the 1972 treaty limiting anti-ballistic
missile systems;
4. Urge the Administration to proceed with negotiations of a multilateral Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, which would prohibit the detonation of any nuclear weapon or device
for test purposes;
5. Call on the United States and the Soviet Union, and all other nuclear powers, to
forgo temporarily the testing, production, and deployment of first-strike weapons
and to enter into serious negotiations to be conducted for the purpose of permanently
eliminating the testing, production, and deployment of these weapons through a mutual,
verifiable agreement;
6. Call on the United States to delay further deployment of the ground-launched Cruise
Missile and Pershing II missile until we exhaust good-faith efforts to negotiate
successfully a treaty on intermediate nuclear forces;
7. Call upon all nations having nuclear capabilities to negotiate a treaty prohibiting
the testing, production, and deployment of space-based weapons and of earth-based
and atmosphere-based weapons designed to attack targets in space;
8. Call upon the United States government to cease public statements that promulgate
the dangerous illusion that society can survive a nuclear war;
9. Call on the government of the United States and the Soviet Union to move from their
current posture of confrontation and invective to good-faith negotiations at the
highest levels to reduce tension and to increase mutually beneficial economic and
cultural relations. The government of the United States should take such actions in consultation
with its allies.