State Senator Jack B. Tenney, whose bid for renomination was rejected by the Republican State Committee here, is seeking the party designation by conducting a bitter primaries campaign aimed against “organized Jewry.”
In televised programs and in campaign meetings here, Tenney has been violently attacking the B’nai B’rith and its Anti-Defamation League and defending Gerald L.K. Smith, leader of the “Christian Nationalists.” On a recent television program, he read the text of an anti-Semitic letter he wrote on the official stationery of the State Senate and of which, he announced, he had distributed 10,000 copies and would distribute 100,000 if he had the funds.
“It appears obvious that Senator Tenney is seeking to provoke religious bigotry in his frantic campaign to retain his seat as State Senator,” H. Graham Balter, head of the ADL regional advisory board, said today. He asserted that “by his attacks on a religious minority, Tenney has offended all Americans.”
The producer of the television forum on which Tenney spoke, has disassociated himself from Tenney’s views and pointed out that the two organizations attacked are reputable bodies with long records of community service.
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.
