The quest for Brotherhood today presents a dual challenge.
There is, first, the problem of World Brotherhood – of trying to hold down the hounds of war and to restore some semblance of peace.
There is, secondly, the problem of building constructive and harmonious relations right here in our own back yards.
As to the first of these undertakings, you and I can join in prayer and in effort towards seeking to wean the people of the Soviet Union away from their misguided leaders, bent on war. We can concern ourselves intelligently and earnestly in the unprecedented responsibility of curbing armed conflict to give us time to try to work out a world in which the cause of democracy and the things of the spirit can triumph over the thrust of communism and materialism.
We know that the split atom and split mankind cannot long coexist on the same planet. But it will take all our energies to heal the breach.
Now as to the matter of achieving understanding and Brotherhood on our home base: it seems to me that we can report genuine progress.
I think this is true in part because the cold shadow of the larger problem makes us huddle closer together. This is, in a sense, a negative gain – that fear makes us brothers – but it is nonetheless an advance.
But it does not release us from the responsibility of seeking Brotherhood not because of anxiety but through the affirmative motivation of a desire for honorable fellowship and amicable relations.
You and I know that Brotherhood hammered out by edict, by command, by propaganda, by proclamation is not lasting Brotherhood. But a Fellowship growing graciously and naturally out of an honest concern for each other; a Fellowship flowering from a concerted attack upon slums, upon poverty, upon bad sanitation, upon that jungle that holds back progress – such a Fellowship shall surely endure.
To achieve this durable and precious boon, we need to be done forever with preachments of mere tolerance. It is well said that tolerance is a weak, a puny thing: it suggests only the absence of intolerance.
We need to supplant the outmoded label of tolerance with the vital and meaningful concept of Mutual Respect.
The Brotherhood that we build here in the home place must be a Brotherhood that says: "I am going to respect you and invite you to respect me; I am going to grant you your right to convictions and shall expect a mutual grant from you."
This Brotherhood says further: "I honor you for your determination to build on the faith of your fathers and expect you so to honor me."
Finally this Brotherhood – this golden bond of Mutual Respect says "There is nothing in this pact that will bar us from participating to the full in the traditional programs of our immediate groups; and there is everything in this pact that will make it imperative for us to give our talents unselfishly to the broader community."
I think that is what we have in mind when we talk, as honest men and women, about the ideal Brotherhood today.
Silently, with determination, it is being built. And the more we dedicate a good share of our efforts to it, the better chance we shall have of standing firm together against the outward foe; the better chance we shall have of making our rightful contribution to the important cause of World Understanding and World Brotherhood.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. House of Representatives Files, Box 93, "Jewish people speeches." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.