50 Mutual Savings Banks in New York Charged with Anti-jewish Bias

The American Jewish Committee charged today that Jews have been systematically excluded from top-management and policy-making positions in the 50 mutual savings banks in New York City.

A survey of more than 400 executives and staff officers and of 750 trustees of these banks was made public today by Theodore Ellenoff, AJ Committee leader, at a press conference held here. The report revealed that less than 3 percent of those surveyed were identified as Jewish although Jews make up one-quarter of New York City’s population and are obviously prominent in the city’s life. This figure of less than 3 percent was broken down in the following manner: less than 2.5 percent of the more than 400 officers were identified as Jewish while the parallel figure for the 750 trustees was less than 3.5 percent.

Committee researchers learned further that no Jewish executive officers were found in 82 percent of the banks while no Jewish trustees were found in 60 percent of the banks. “The evidence suggests,” the report asserted, “that in sensitivity and indifference, if not deliberate exclusion, have hardened over the years into de facto discrimination.”

“Exclusion of Jews from jobs as officers in mutual savings banks,” Mr. Ellenoff pointed out, “takes place in a city where Jews comprise about 25 percent of the population and have comparatively high educational qualifications for executive positions. In New York City, Jews constitute approximately 50 percent of the total college graduates.”

Mr. Ellenoff related the report to nationwide studies made over a period of years by the American Jewish Committee on the subject of religious discrimination in the executive suite of American business and industry. He said that the facts revealed in the mutual savings bank study are “illustrative of the restrictive patterns that the American Jewish Committee has found to exist in many American financial institutions and among the nation’s leading corporations.”

In making recommendations, the Committee report asserted that mutual savings banks are chartered, supervised, and governed by the Executive and Legislative branches of the State Government, “whose public policy is unequivocally opposed to discrimination and restrictions based upon race, creed, color, or national origin.”