The trial of two Jewish boys, Marvin Blaustein and Jacob Hodes, charged with participating in an affray during attacks by anti-Semitic hoodlums on Jews here, opened today in the Dorchester Municipal Court. The trial is being watched by both Jewish leaders and non-Jews interested in checking the anti-Jewish assaults which have taken place in the Jewish-population sections of Boston.
The arrest of the two boys led to Jewish protests against the failure by the Boston police authorities to curb the anti-Semitic elements who have assaulted Jewish children and adults on the streets. At today’s hearing, young Hodes charged a police sergeant with beating him at the police station.
The hearing, which lasted all day, will continue tomorrow when the court is expected to issue its verdict. The two Jewish boys are being defended by Herbert Ehrman and Albert Hurwitz, two Jewish lawyers who volunteered to prepare their defense in cooperation with the Central Advisory Committee, a Jewish body coordinating Jewish communal work in Greater Boston.
The Central Advisory Committee today issued a statement declaring that it “feels that the assaults upon Jewish residents in Dorchester is not a Jewish question, but are evidence of a serious menace to our democracy, which should be faced and solved by all Americans.”
“Insofar as the lawlessness is a matter of hoodlumism, the problem is purely a police question in which all citizens are interested,” the statement said. “To the extent, however, that these acts indicate the successful advance in Massachusetts of the anti-Semitic Nazi policy of ‘divide and conquer,’ the situation presents a sinister aspect, which can only be met by the united effort of all persons interested in preserving the safety and freedom of our country.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
