Jones Co-Signs Letter Depicting American and Israeli Traditions

Israel and America have a common history which binds the two countries together in defense of the values that mark advanced civilization, Howard Mumford Jones, professor of English stated yesterday. A co-signer of a letter appearing in the Sunday New York Times, he emphasized the need for remembering the similarities between the two countries.

Israel, the letter said, is the one area in the Middle East where "Americans, American customs and American points of view are understood as the result of a common cultural heritage." The letter recalled the formation of the American-Israel Society, which arose from the conviction "that it is fundamentally important for citizens of one country to learn and remember the similarities and differences that make them what they are."

The most important common factor that the Americans and Israelis share, according to the letter, is "the worship of God and the inestimable gift of the Bible." Israel, like America, has established "a democratic equality of opportunity within a republican frame of government," it continued, and Israel, "in opening it's door to 800,000 immigrants from seventy-two countries in the past eight and a half years, has re-enacted America's early history."

In its small area, the letter explained, Israel "is carrying on what could be called intensive pioneering; exploring and developing what seemed limited resources with the same imaginaton that enabled our ancestors to develop far larger and more obvious ones."

Other signers of the letter include: Van Wyck Brooks, Paul H. Douglas, Hubert H. Humphrey, Irving M. Ives, Theodore R. McKeldin, George Meany, Charles Munch, G. Bromley Oxnam, D.D., Abba Hillel Silver D.D.