Latin American perspectives A Voyage to South America
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National Educational radio in cooperation with the Institute on man and
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science presents a series of talks drawn from the institute's annual conference
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held recently in Rensselaer Vale New York. The Institute on man and
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science is a nonprofit educational institution chartered by the New York State Board
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of Regions. The annual assembly of the institute is designed to focus
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attention on 20th century technology and the human relationships resulting from
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its application. The speaker for this program is serving him Levine
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director of the education and urban planning department of the American Jewish Committee.
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Mr. Levine's topic is the cities and the suburbs. Here now
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is Mr. Levine.
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I am a reconstructed they get completely biased
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cosmopolitan Jill loves the city and in effect
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really has only distain for the suburbs. On the other hand I want
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to speak lovingly about the suburbs because pluralistic
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and in terms of objectivity I don't believe they are much maligned
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much under-rated as a creative and positive force in American life
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and they had to stay so we better learn a little bit about what's
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really happening in the suburbs and perhaps get rid of some of the pop culture.
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The Sunday supplement analysis of how miserable things are in
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the suburbs so modified. Most people live in the suburbs like it very
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much. It's frankly and escape to a more manageable society
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and in our times anything that cuts into
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dehumanization and alienation is a plus. Question is
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is it Humanisation enough.
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Let me read to you a page if I might take some of my valuable
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time from a recent book by her began. It's called the Levittown
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is Dr. Gans lived with this community as it was formed in
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New Jersey for a period of two years. And these are some of his
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conclusions as to how a rival working class
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lower middle class and middle middle group took a look at their community
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after having lived there for a few years.
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He says most New suburbanites are pleased with the community that develops they enjoy the House and outdoor
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living and take pleasure from a large supply of compatible people without
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experiencing the boredom or malaise ascribed to suburban home which
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some people encounter unexpected social isolation particularly those who differ from the majority of
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their neighbors. Who will be socially
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isolated depends on the community and Levittown they were all the couple that well
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educated in the poorly educated and women who had come from a cohesive working class or ethnic
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enclave but were used to living with an extended family. Such
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people probably suffer in every suburb even though they want to escape from the close life of the
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urban village. They miss their old haunts cannot find compatible people do not
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know how to make new friends. But the least happy people are always those of lowest income and
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least education. They not only have the most difficulty in making social contacts and
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joining groups but are also be set by financial problems which strain family tempers as
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well as family budgets. And if the suburb is designed for young adults and children
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the adolescents will suffer from nothing to do from adult hostility towards the youth
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culture and peer groups. People's lives are changed somewhat by the move to suburbia
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but the basic ways remain the same. They do not develop new lifestyles or
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ambitions for themselves and their children. Moreover many of the changes that do take place were
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desired before the move. Because a suburb makes them possible morale
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goes up. Boredom and loneliness are reduced family life
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becomes temporarily more cohesive social and organizational activities
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multiply and spare time pursuits now concentrate on the house and yard.
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Some changes result from the move. Community organizational needs encourage some people
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to become Join us for the first time. Ethnic and religious differences demand more church
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attendance and social isolation breeds depression boredom and loneliness for the
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fuel left out. But change is not the only direction though. Different people respond
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differently to the new environment. The most undesirable changes usually stem from familial and
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occupational circumstances.
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This is sort of a balanced deal he's giving in this page but frankly his entire book
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is A.
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And an announcement of joy on the part of most suburbanites who have
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made it for the first time.
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And this in fact is what we have to begin to think very very deeply
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about the suburban revolution in American life really is people voting with their
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feet against city lights. In fact the few
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exceptions are those who really love the city. People who are
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frankly really not quite assimilated
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into the american think Europeanized they are
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old line because they are people who perhaps
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are part of the new ethnic group called intellectuals professionals
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etc.. The style of American life the culture of American
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life has really been small town rural
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and suburban. The fact that there are so few American cities that are
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distinguished in a particularistic y as compared to European and
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Asiatic cities in the case truly that the American culture has been
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bent in this direction. What does this mean in terms of the
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future for a city and suburban relationship. It means that perhaps as people have
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mentioned before perhaps the solution to the city's lies in the
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suburbs. And if that is so we have a real big
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problem on our hands because of the alienation of suburbanites from the city. What I want to
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dress myself to today all those forces in American life that are moving
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towards perhaps bridging the isolation the separation the
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polarization and whether or not we cannot in some way through
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intelligence through social engineering through tremendous need to
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develop the kinds of techniques strategies and governmental policies
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that want some but Weybridge what must be bridged.
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Some say that there will be no such thing as suburbs and cities. Some say that
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there will be only metropolitan areas that will be metropolitan areas but there will be
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neighborhood nuts for a long long time to come and that neighborhood NASS reflect
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itself in suburbanization. So you can have a variety of
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cultures living together at the same time in a metropolitan area. None of
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which meshes with each other and which in fact conflicts more
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often than it combines. Let me if
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I might begin to develop what I think is a white approach to the
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city from a suburban vantage point we have seen some very positive
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directions in the last two years mostly because the business
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community has awakened and dramatically awakened to the fact that the
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cities still do represent a major
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commercial industrial base a place that they cannot totally give up
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in terms of markets. Transportation skilled workers they have
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tried at least in terms of industrial development
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to build in the suburbs and they've succeeded largely at least
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if you think in terms of factories and if you think in terms of small
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manufacturing operations there has been probably good success and
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diversification and differentiation of of industry
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might effect that has created one of the major job of major if future problems a problem
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that is monstrous. A study of New York City has indicated that in the
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next 10 years the
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continuation of a trend continuation of a trend which sought
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10 jobs created in the suburbs for everyone in the city will look solid right.
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What a devastating thing that is when we think of the kind of racial polarization and
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entrapment of the black man in the city. And if that
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entrapment in fact become ideologically a fause as many black
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power leaders seem to think it will be or want to be. Is there really
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some basis of an economy for black people separated from where most
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industrial jobs are. Some people think yes some people think that the concept of
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community and the building up of one's community and housing small
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businesses etc and government jobs will be a substantial
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gain in terms of employment but if you really study the American economy you know
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that's hogwash on the big scene. It's
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sufficiently new to create the kinds of positions for the middle class
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and for the operator and for the militant the avant
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God to make a good living and to develop the kinds of movements that will create power.
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But power does not necessity. Necessarily mean economic wealth for the
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masses. Power did not mean economic wealth for the Irish masses.
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When I took over the cities it meant that. The group as a whole
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moved forward which is a substantial piece of progress and perhaps
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becomes a great economic force in the third and fourth and fifth generation but the first
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generation the hungry generation a generation we're talking about now does not necessarily
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gain rapidly enough unless they are integrated into the larger economy and the larger economy as
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we know it now has at least industrially is going into the suburbs.
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We've been talking about how do you bring black people into the suburbs won the resistances are
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fantastic and growing. Let me say something about these resistances
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and where they will shop and. Recently there was an NBC
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television show I think it was about three months ago which showed a gun
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club practicing target practice in the suburbs.
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It was interesting about this gun club was that it was not.
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Indistinguishable from it was distinguishable from other kinds of
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suburban associations that seem to have been
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an ethnic enclave. It was a rather heavily
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Italian with an Italian Cultural bent involved in the
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kinds of expression that we heard. This is not being pejorative about Italians it's
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an indication that a force that we thought was waning in American life
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ethnicity is being recreated in terms of group reactions to
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other kinds of group nationalism.
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Black Nationalism is creating I believe in the next few years
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the kind of new groupings of ethnic
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America who are working class and lower middle class by the
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way there's an interesting figure that you ought to know. A recent study done
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by the Kraft Survey Group the
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labor unions discovered much to their shock and surprise because it
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has to impact on how they plan to organize for political action. Discover
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that over 50 percent. Of all work is over the age of
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40 now live in the suburbs. That was a dramatic figure but I'll go a
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little further. Over 75 percent of all workers under the age of 40 live
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in the suburbs and they have been operating on public issues as if
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the New Deal welfarism was really what was of deep
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interest to their clients constituents and union members
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when in fact what was really of interest for property values was
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traffic patterns etc.. So Labor has to take a look at
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itself as many other groups still now if this is a force if if the
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ethnic enclaves of our cities have spread out as a working class
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on an Island suburbs and I'm groping either in churches or in gun
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clubs or and neighborhood associations or in the 800 member
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Italian Civic Association in Mt. Vernon which is fighting school integration
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we might have a new problem in America very identifiable problem. If these
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people also are the truck drivers the place man
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and the grouping that George Wallace calls
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the. Common man the every day America get
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the guy he says has no truck with pseudo intellectuals and
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marchers and criminals and so forth. In fact this is a group that
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has been recently taken out of out of national consultation
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that the American Jewish Committee helped hold. This is a group that in fact
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