Aj Committee Propose Special Meeting to Resolve Forest Hills Controversy

Warning that the Forest Hills housing controversy may foreshadow “mass conflict” in New York City, the New York chapter of the American Jewish Committee has offered to sponsor a “laboratory for crisis resolution” between the principals in the dispute to help settle the issue. In a letter yesterday to Mayor John V. Lindsay, the AJ Committee Chapter urged his endorsement for the proposal to meet the “overriding problem” of the intergroup health of the city.

The laboratory would involve gathering the opinion leaders of all factions in one room for airing their views on the grievances and arriving at a consensus for their solution. The proposal for the use of professional specialists’ help in resolving the issue has been endorsed by the New York Interracial Colloquy. The Colloquy is sponsored by the AJ Committee, the NAACP, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the National Urban League.

In the letter to Lindsay, Edward D. Moldover, president of the AJ Committee Chapter, and Haskell L. Lazere, its director, proposed that the techniques employed by Community Confrontation and Communication Associates to settle racial disputes in Camden, N.J., Asbury Park, N.J., Grand Rapids, Mich. and elsewhere be employed in the current controversy. “We offer to arrange immediately for the services of those same experienced professionals so that the Forest Hills controversy can be resolved,” Moldover stated.

He pointed out that the AJ Committee had not taken a position on the housing project. “Our efforts in the past many weeks have been directed to the amelioration of the complex community relations problems so evident in the present crisis,” he declared. Pointing up the dangers in allowing the present situation to fester, Moldover insisted that “Forest Hills has already become a nightmare….The name-calling, rapidly deteriorating inter and intra-group relations, violent emotionalism and irrational fears are symptoms of grave urban and national social crisis.”

The AJ Committee leader cautioned that harmonious relations could not be restored within New York until the issues were removed from the streets. If this were not done, he added, “not only will the future of scatter-site and public housing be jeopardized but it will be impossible to achieve a just solution to the dispute over the project itself.”