Resolution Adopted by the

CCAR

Immigration to

Israel

Adopted by the 102nd Annual

Convention of

the Central Conference of American Rabbis

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, June, 1991

WHEREAS, we are increasingly pleased at the enormous number of

Jews from the U.S.S.R.,

Ethiopia

and other countries making aliyah

to Israel, and

WHEREAS, we are at the same time alarmed by their need for

adequate housing, therefore

BE IT

RESOLVED, that the Central Conference of American Rabbis urge world

Jewry to

support any and all

organizations aiding in the settlement and absorption of emigres,

such as Operation Exodus (UJA),

Operation Promised Land (JNF), Israel Bonds, the

Joint Distribution Committee, Hebrew Immigrant Aid

Society, and others, and

BE IT

FURTHER RESOLVED, that we rabbis of the Central Conference of American

Rabbis

show our support by personal

example in contributing toward this cause a personally

meaningful percentage of our own housing

allowance, and

BE IT FURTHER

RESOLVED, that we urge the governments of the United States, Canada

and others to provide substantial

loan guarantees as a means to assist Israel in

its enormous burden of housing this mass

immigration.

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Social Security

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

Background

Jewish tradition recognizes the vulnerability and abandonment that may come with old age. “Cast me not away in time of old age, forsake me not when my strength is spent” laments the psalmist in Psalm 70. The Bible responds to the fear of old age by urging people to respect and care for their elders. As it says in the book of Leviticus “You shall rise up before the gray-haired and defer to the one who is elder”. (Leviticus 19:32) Again and again, we are commanded to take care of those who are most vulnerable in our society, typified by the widow, the orphan and the stranger.

Social Security embodies these biblical principles of intergenerational responsibility and support. For over 60 years, it has been the main avenue through which the United States has assured a reasonable income for its retired workers and their families, as well as for those who have lost family income due to the death or disability of a worker. Social Security, arguably the nation’s most successful anti-poverty program, is a social insurance program and a crucial safety net for some of our most vulnerable populations. Poverty rates among the elderly have fallen from an estimated 50% in 1935 to around 11% today. Over 2/3 of elderly Social Security beneficiaries receive more than half their income from social security, and for 16%, Social Security benefits are their sole income. Over 30% of Social Security beneficiaries receive disability or survivor benefits. Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund, who are charged with making seventy-five year predictions based on conservative assumptions, project that by 2014 benefits will exceed revenues and by 2034 the Social Security Trust Fund that has been built up will be depleted. At that point, they predict, Social Security revenues will only cover 75% of promised benefits. Others insist that the assumptions of the Trustees are unrealistically modest and that when current rates of productivity and population growth are taken into account the fund is, in fact, not in crisis at all. Moreover, they argue, if we invest in education, health, and job training programs and work towards full employment, as the CCAR has advocated repeatedly in the past, we can maintain a healthy, productive workforce, foster future economic growth, and extend the capacity of Social Security to fully fund benefits beyond the dates now forecast.

Many proposals for reforming Social Security suggest replacing the current system and its defined benefits with individual accounts that would be invested in the stock market. Supporters of individual privatized accounts argue that establishing such accounts would increase returns on Social Security dollars and give individuals more control over their retirement money. Others disagree. They argue that any move towards privatization would create larger risks for individuals and involve substantial administrative costs. Furthermore, they argue that individual accounts would undermine the progressive element of the Social Security System. Under the system as it currently exists, Social Security replaces proportionately larger shares of past earnings for low-income workers then for those in higher brackets. A system relying on individual accounts is unlikely to be similarly progressive.

A number of possible modifications to the Social Security System have been proposed. We believe that any plan for changing Social Security must be consistent with certain fundamental principles.

THEREFORE, the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolves to advocate for a Social Security System that incorporates the following principles:

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Resolution on Refugees from Kosovo

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

We, who once were “strangers in a land not our own,” recognize the terrible and dehumanizing conditions under which Kosovar refugees are currently living and pray that soon they will be able to return to their communities in Kosovo in safety and security. We also commend the Administration for recently agreeing to accept 20,000 Kosovar refugees into this country. Should conditions for the refugees continue to deteriorate and delays continue in their safe repatriation, however, we are concerned that a cap of 20,000 will be inadequate to alleviate the hardship for the Kosovar refugees.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Central Conference of American Rabbis urge the United States government, if necessary, to increase the number of Kosovar refugees permitted to come to the United States to meet the changing conditions and needs of the Kosovar refugee population.

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Resolution on Race and the Criminal Justice System

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

Background

Preventing and punishing criminal conduct are among the primary obligations of government at all levels. In recent years, the criminal justice system in the United States has increasingly come under attack for fighting crime at the expense of the civil rights of minorities.

Disparate application of the death penalty has been perhaps the most prominent, and most troubling example of this phenomenon. African-American men make up nearly 40% of all U.S. death row prisoners, though they account for only 6% of people living in the U.S. Nearly half of those executed in the last two decades have been people of color, with African-Americans alone accounting for 38%. Racial injustices exist within the justice system as well; 82% of all executed African Americans were executed for the murder of a Caucasian person, while only 3% of executed Caucasians were convicted of killing people of African, Asian, or Latin decent. Meanwhile, people of color are the victims in more than half of all homicides. Nationwide, a white victim case is over four times more likely to result in a death sentence than was a comparable black victim case.

Racial minorities, especially African-Americans, have complained of abuses by agents of the criminal justice system, and inequities of the criminal justice system. These grievances include police brutality, disparity in incarceration, racial profiling, crack/cocaine sentencing disparity, disparate treatment of minorities in the juvenile justice system, and racial inequalities in application of the death penalty. There is an increasing perception that we have two criminal justice systems, one for affluent whites and one for racial minorities and the poor, separate and unequal.

Police Brutality

Use of force by police and law enforcement agencies have contributed to a widening rift in police/community relations. The brutalizing of Abner Louima while in police custody in New York, and the police shooting of a West African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, in the vestibule of his New York apartment building have raised the public profile of a long-simmering concern. These events, as well as others across the country, sparked massive protests in New York City, Washington D.C., and around the nation, and opened a dialogue between city officials, minority leaders, and law enforcement agents. Several programmatic suggestions have been offered to repair this breach in trust and faith. These suggestions are the first step in addressing concerns of abuses in the criminal justice system.

Racial Profiling

A major contributing factor in the racial disparity in prosecution and punishment is the profiling of racial minorities as drug traffickers. Profiling is a method that officers use in instituting traffic stops and searches. In a significant percentage of these traffic stops and searches of African-Americans, no traffic offenses are cited. In an opinion from 1997, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote: “It is clear . . . that African-Americans are stopped by the police in disproportionate numbers.” State police statistics show that 73% of cars stopped and searched on I-95 between Baltimore and Delaware from January 1995 to January 1997 were driven by African Americans, despite the fact that only 14% of persons driving on that stretch of road were black. Police found absolutely nothing in 70% of those searches. Civil rights groups have asserted that these traffic searches have been instituted on the basis of race, and lack probable cause, and are in violation of Fourth Amendment rights to security in person and property. They contend that alternate methods must be developed and implemented to ensure that the war on crime does not unjustly focus on race.

Sentencing Disparity

It is becoming clear that at every level of the criminal justice system African-Americans are treated disparately. They are arrested more frequently, convicted more frequently, and punished more harshly than whites. While blacks constitute about 12% of the U.S. population and 13% of drug users, they make up 38% of persons arrested for drug offenses, 59% of those convicted of drug offenses, and 63% of those convicted of drug trafficking. While racial profiling is a major contributor to the arrest and sentencing disparities between blacks and whites, it is not the only factor. Blacks convicted of drug offenses get sentenced to prison at much higher rates than whites convicted of the same offenses. In 1994, 33% of the white convicts and 50% of the black convicts were sentenced to prison. Furthermore, blacks who are sentenced to prison get longer sentences than whites sentenced to prison for the same crimes. For state drug defendants, the average maximum sentence length in 1994 was 51 months for whites and 60 months for blacks.

A disparity in the treatment of users of crack and powder cocaine contributes to the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. In the 1980’s crack dealers turned neighborhoods into drug markets. As heavily armed gangs fought over turf, murder rates shot up. Health officials warned that “crack babies” were going to flood the hospitals. Crack transformed police work, hospitals, parental rights, courts and the racial makeup of American prisons. Federal crack cocaine defendants are disproportionately black. In 1997, 84% of the crack cocaine drug offenders sentenced in federal courts were African Americans, 6.4% of the crack cocaine drug offenders sentenced in federal courts were Caucasian. In the same year 20.3% of powder cocaine drug offenders sentenced were Caucasian and 30.4% of powder cocaine drug offenders sentenced were Black. White Americans account for 52% of all crack cocaine users but make up only less than ten percent of those convicted for crack cocaine offenses.

In the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Congress distinguished crack cocaine from both powder cocaine and other drugs by creating a mandatory minimum penalty for simple possession of crack cocaine, the only such federal penalty for a first offense of simple possession of a controlled substance. Under this law, possession and trafficking of more than five grams of crack cocaine triggers a minimum sentence of five years in prison, and possession of more than five hundred grams of powder cocaine triggers a minimum sentence of five years in prison. Simple possession of any quantity of any other illegal substances by a first-time offender — including powder cocaine — is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a maximum of one year in prison.

In April 1997, the Supreme Court refused to hear a claim that the legal distinction between powder cocaine and crack cocaine is discriminatory because crack defendants are predominantly African-American. In addition, Congress has failed to reform the sentencing disparity, despite the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s recommendation to remove the disparity and its later recommendation to reduce the disparity.

Civil rights leaders, religious leaders and many former supporters of mandatory minimum sentences have blamed these federal — as well as state — sentencing laws, including Michigan’s “650-lifer” law, which had mandated a life sentence without parole for anyone convicted of possessing, delivering, or intending to deliver over 650 grams of cocaine or heroin, for devastating minority communities — where one out of four young Black men are in prison, parole or probation. Many federal judges and law enforcement groups are also opposed to mandatory sentences, appealing for new approaches to dealing with the drug problem.

Voting Disenfranchisement

Our nation continues to permit an entire category of citizens — former felons — to be cut off from the democratic process. Approximately 1.4 million black men, 13% of Black males in the U.S., have had their right to vote taken away because of felony convictions, according to a reports by Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project. Blacks represent more than one-third (36%) of the approximately 3.9 million people nationwide who are temporarily or permanently unable to vote because of felony convictions. The rate of Black voter disenfranchisement is seven times the national average.

Of the 3.9 million felons and ex-felons that have lost the right to vote, almost three-quarters are not in prison. One million were sentenced to probation only. Almost 1.4 million have already completed their sentences, 1.4 million are on probation or parole, and over a million are in prison. (For comparison, a congressional district typically has between 545,000 and 600,000 persons.) (These statistics overlap in some areas, and do not appear to total 3.9 million)

Every state except four — Maine, Massachusetts, Utah, and Vermont — denies prisoners the right to vote. Thirty-two states prohibit felons on probation and/or parole from voting. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia take away voting rights only while felons are in prison. In 14 other states felony convictions typically lead to lifetime disenfranchisement. Former felons may regain their voting rights in lifetime disenfranchisement states, usually by a governor’s order or by an action of the parole or pardons board, but this rarely happens.

Juvenile Justice

Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) is defined in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act as existing when “the proportion of juveniles detained or confined in secure detention facilities, secure correction facilities, jails, and lockups who are members of minority groups exceeds the proportion such groups represent in the general population.”

In the past ten years, a growing body of evidence has documented the phenomenon of disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) at all stages of the criminal justice system. Although African-American youth age 10-17 constitute only 15% of the U.S. population, they account for 26% of juvenile arrests, 32% of delinquency referrals to juvenile court, 41% of juveniles detained in delinquency cases, 46% of juveniles in secure corrections facilities, and 52% of juveniles transferred to adult criminal court after judicial hearings. An African-American youth is twice as likely to be arrested and seven times as more likely to be placed in a detention facility than a Caucasian youth. It would be easy to simply attribute this large discrepancy to the fact that young people of different racial groups commit different types of crimes. However, data shows this is not the case, with significantly higher rates of confinement for African-American juveniles for every offense group.

Further, African-American males are six times more likely to be admitted to state juvenile facilities for crimes against persons than their Caucasian counterparts, four times more likely for property crimes, and 30 times more likely to be detained in state juvenile facilities for drug offenses than white males.

THEREFORE, the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolves to:

A. Police Brutality

Speak out against police brutality, and support action to improve police community relations such as:

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Convention Resolution

Rabbi Richard Levy

Resolution adopted by the 110th convention of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis/May 1999

WHEREAS, Rabbi Richard Levy, The President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, originated the process which resulted today in the historic approval of a new Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism and

WHEREAS, Rabbi Levy guided that process with unimpeachable integrity, intelligence, grace and gentility, insisting throughout on including all elements of the Reform community in an open and democratic dialogue, and

WHEREAS, Rabbi Levy demonstrated extraordinary patience, grace and forbearance in guiding the CCAR membership through its discussion and debate of the Statement of Principles,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the assembled members of the CCAR, express our sincere gratitude and appreciation and affection to Richard Levy for his visionary guidance and leadership that have led us to this historic occasion.

Baruch ata Adonai, shenatan meichochmato l’vasar vadam.

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Patients’ Bill of Rights

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

We are taught that when God created the universe we were endowed with the ability to become God’s partners in curing illness. Providing health care is not just an obligation for the patient and the doctor, but for society as well. It is for this reason that Maimonides, a revered Jewish scholar and himself a physician, listed health care first on his list of the ten most important communal services that a city had to offer to its residents. (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot IV: 23)

Based on this tradition, the Central Conference of American Rabbis has repeatedly stressed the importance of health care and has called for a national health care plan which grants universal access to primary and acute health care and which will provide for cost containment, equitable financing and assure quality of services.

Health care consumers and their advocates have become increasingly concerned about maintaining quality of health care. Within the health care industry there are often wide variations in costs, quality, access, and choice of doctors and treatments. There are numerous reported instances of failures to give patients timely and proper treatment, due to cost-cutting measures, limited numbers of doctors in health plans, and denial of access to treatment options. Although health plans have denied access to procedures that could have helped them, many plans cannot be held accountable for decisions they make that lead to worsened health or even death.

THEREFORE the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolves to:

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Opposition to the United States Embargo on Cuba

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

Background

We are deeply distressed by the escalating suffering of the Cuban people and are goaded by the Rabbinic statement, “Who is the mightiest of heroes? One who makes of an enemy a friend” (Avot de Rabbi Natan). The time has come to be guided by the wisdom in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “There is a time to break down and a time to build up; a time for war and a time for peace.”

For the past 40 years, the United States has imposed a stringent policy of economic and diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, a policy selectively applied to coerce non-democratic governments to conform to a variety of urgent national and international policies breached by such governments.

While the U.S. has achieved some of its major objectives, the trade embargo has had an increasingly devastating effect on the lives of Cuban citizens.

In April, 1997, the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism urged the President to lift the ban on direct flights to Cuba in order to facilitate the provision of donated humanitarian supplies. In April, 1998, the Commission resolved to urge Congress to pass the Cuban Humanitarian Trade Act, which provided for an exception to the embargo for the provision of humanitarian relief, and urged the President to allow citizens and permanent residents of the U.S. to fly to Cuba for humanitarian research, journalistic, or religious purposes. In this resolution, we quoted Pope John Paul II’s who, in his January, 1998 visit to Cuba, said: “In our day, no nation can live in isolation. The Cuban people therefore cannot be denied the contacts with other peoples necessary for economic, social and cultural development, especially when the imposed isolation strikes the population indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials of decent living, things such as food, health and education. All can and should take practical steps to bring about changes in this regard.” We affirm our agreement with this statement.

Times and circumstances have changed. While we disagree with some of the Castro government’s continuing, wrongful, and unacceptable policies, it is now clear that sanctions have not been effective in changing these policies.

THEREFORE, the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolves to:

Call upon the President and Congress to revoke the embargo on Cuba except for military and police equipment.

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Resolution on Medicare Annual Cap on

Rehabilitation Services

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

Background

The Jewish textual tradition unquestionably demands that we show special concern for the welfare of the elderly. The Holiness Code of Leviticus declares that we must “rise before the aged and show deference to the old,” (Lev. 19) and the Psalmist pleads “cast me not away in my old age.” It goes without saying that the Torah equates zeqenim, elders, with those worthy of our attention and respect.

Effective January 1, 1999, Medicare began severely limiting coverage of non-hospital based (Medicare Part B) rehabilitation services to a fixed amount per year per Medicare beneficiary. Physical and speech therapy are capped at $1500, and occupational therapy is capped separately at $1500. These artificial and arbitrary limits hurt the most frail elderly who can exhaust $1500 of physical therapy in two weeks during an acute episode. For example, in one facility which is home to 425 elderly residents in California (average age 90), four months into the year, twenty-two residents had already gone over their $1500 limit for physical therapy, and another 34 were within $50 of reaching the limit. The list of residents over the limit will grow dramatically over the next eight months.

Over the past two decades, Medicare has continually tightened the purse strings for coverage of rehabilitation services. Twenty years ago Medicare covered elderly persons’ rehabilitation until they returned to their prior level of functioning. Some years later, the coverage paid only for the period during which a patient made rapid progress. When progress slowed down, Medicare stopped paying. As of January 1, 1999, Medicare no longer covers the rapid progress stage and rehabilitation benefits for the elderly are cut off at the $1500 limit.

These policy changes, which penalize and mistreat the frail, elderly and vulnerable among us, are unconscionable in a nation as wealthy as the United States.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Central Conference of American Rabbis strongly protest and condemn Medicare’s policy of limiting Part B annual coverage of physical and speech therapy to $1500 and of occupational therapy to $1500, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the CCAR requests that the Health Care Financing Administration immediately retracts this policy.

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Resolution on Lori Berenson

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

WHEREAS, Lori Berenson, a Jewish American freelance journalist working on assignment in Peru, was convicted of treason and incarcerated in inhuman, life-threatening conditions, and

WHEREAS, Lori Berenson’s conviction is incompatible with Peruvian law, since she is not a Peruvian citizen, and

WHEREAS, Lori Berenson was denied her fundamental rights to a fair, public trial as required by Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Peru is a signatory, and

WHEREAS, Lori Berenson was tried for a convicted of treason by a secret, hooded military tribunal whose activities have been condemned by human rights groups (among them Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights of the Organization of American States), the United Nations and the United States government; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Central Conference of American Rabbis urge Peruvian President Fujimori to grant Lori Berenson a public trial in full accordance with due process; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the CCAR and its members urge United States President William J. Clinton and Secretary of State Madeline Albright to express their concern for the inhuman condition under which she has been held and assure that she be held under reasonable conditions including legal counsel, medical assistance, visitors and access to correspondence.

Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Living Wage Campaigns

Resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis, May 1999

Background

The Torah instructs us to treat workers with justice, as it is written: “You shall not oppress a hired laborer that is poor and needy, whether he be of your people or of the strangers that are in the land within your gates” (Deuteronomy 24:14). Jewish tradition recognizes the importance of wages to a worker’s sustenance. We are taught that, “one who withholds an employee’s wages is as though he deprived him of his life” (Baba Metzia 112a). Based on these and other Jewish teachings, the CCAR has long advocated measures which would assure that every worker willing and able to work receives a wage which makes possible a decent standard of living.

Over the last several decades, wages for low- income workers have stagnated. Since 1968, the stock market, adjusted for inflation, has risen over 150% while the purchasing power of the minimum wage has fallen 30%. The average minimum wage worker is responsible for 54% of his or her family’s weekly earnings. These workers are not paid enough money to support themselves and their families.

In recent years, some cities and counties have enacted living wage ordinances. These laws, generally the result of local grassroots campaigns, require that, to qualify for government contracts, service providers must pay their employees living wages, often defined as no less than the poverty line for a family of four. The reasoning behind these ordinances is that the government should set a community standard for wages, that people working for the government, directly or indirectly, should not be paid sub-poverty wages, and that while contracting out to companies that pay low wages may appear to lower government costs, it forces more people to be dependent on welfare and social services at increased government costs for those programs. In addition, only employing those who will work for sub-standard wages decreases the quality and motivation of the workforce. Living wage campaigns provide a unique opportunity for people to work to raise wages in their own communities.

THEREFORE, the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolves to: