The American Civil Liberties Union said in a report issued yesterday that an abnormal growth of anti-Semitism in Peekskill, N.Y., prodded into a mood of violence by the local press, was the basic cause for the riots which broke out there last summer during a concert at which Paul Robeson appeared.
The report, whose signatories included Rabbi Irving Miller, president of the American Jewish Congress, declared: “The unprovoked rioting was fostered largely by anti-Semitism, growing out of local resentment against the increasing influx of Jewish summer residents from New York. It was heightened by the area’s tradition of political violence.”
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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.