Black Teachers’ Group Head ‘appalled’ at ADL Charge of Anti-semitism

The president of the African-American Teachers’ Association said yesterday he was “appalled” at the action of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in labeling the ATA “anti-Semitic” just because the two organizations “disagree” on the approach to Black-Jewish problems. If a Jew “disagreed” with a Black program, Albert Vann told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, it would be unfair to label him automatically “anti-Black.”

Vann, who had not returned earlier JTA telephone calls, was responding to charges by the ADL last Thursday that public funds to the ATA from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare were being “used to subsidize racial or religious hatred,” epitomized by what the ADL said were anti-Semitic quotations in Forum, the ATA’s journal, in 1967 and 1968; by former ATA official Leslie Campbell in Black News, and by ATA official Tyrone Woods in a WBAI radio broadcast on Jan. 24, 1969.

The quotations variously referred to Jewish “domination” of the city’s public schools, Jewish “exploiters” of Blacks, “despicable Jew boys,” Israeli “imperialism” and Hitler’s virtues. Vann said he did not recall the quotations and wanted to know if they had been taken out of context by the ADL. He also asked why alleged statements made several years ago were just now being raised by the ADL.

CAN’T REMEMBER THAT FAR BACK

Asked his opinion of the quote attributed to Woods–“As far as I’m concerned, more power to Hitler. He didn’t make enough lamp shades out of them. He didn’t make enough belts out of them”–Vann said: “I wouldn’t endorse such a quote.” But he expressed “doubt” that Woods had made the statement. The ATA president charged the ADL with “skillful manipulation” in its choice of quotations, adding: “To what extent have these statements affected the quality of life in the city?”

Asked if he would endorse the reported statement in the lead article of the Nov.-Dec. 1967 Forum criticizing “the Jews who dominate and control the educational bureaucracy of the New York public school system,” spelling “death for the minds and souls of our Black children,” Vann said it was important to know whether the article was a Forum editorial or a bylined opinion piece. He himself, he said, did not recall the quotation or the article.

Asked if he believed Jews “dominate and control” the city’s public schools, Vann replied: “Who has the power to change and affect life?,” adding that Jews were more preponderant in the educational world than in the general population. When the JTA asked Vann if through larger numbers a group automatically has inordinate power, Vann said: “Sure, in some institutions.” Asked if this included the public schools here, he replied that this was “common knowledge.”

NOT PERSONAL OPINION

Advised of Vann’s rebuttal to the ADL’s charges, Irwin Suall, the B’nai B’rith unit’s domestic fact-finding director, told the JTA that in seeing educators in terms of religion, Vann was concocting “a Jewish conspiracy.” He pointed out that the ADL’s protest to HEW Secretary Elliot L. Richardson listed “a number of other” instances of “anti-Semitic” statements by ATA leaders beyond those indicated to the press, the most recent one being in the Nov. 1971 Forum.

In that issue, he said, more than a page of the eight-page publication was devoted to an article signed “Carol Williams” declaring that the position of school secretary has through the years been “a Jewish-dominated position, as is everything else in the Board of Education.” Suall contended that since Miss Williams was not identified by anything but her name, the implication was that she spoke for the Forum editors and the ATA. Besides, he added, “It’s an organizational bulletin, not a discussion magazine, not a newspaper.”