Behind the Headlines As School Begins Jews Little Affected by Bussing Controversy

Jewish families with school-age children have been generally unaffected by existing or pending court-ordered plans for mandatory bussing for public school integration in five cities where reports have been provided to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a telephone survey.

Jewish communal agencies in three of the five cities have participated in varying degrees in community-wide efforts to plan for peaceful implementation of court-ordered bussing for school integration. The five cities include two in which public demonstrations and violence have been the response to bussing programs–Louisville, which has 8500 Jews, and Boston, which has 180,000 Jews. The other three cities studied were Pittsburgh, which has 45,000 Jews; Wilmington, Delaware, which has 8500 Jews; and Detroit, which has 80,000 Jews.

Alvin Kushner, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit, and Herman Brown, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Boston, reported that the Jews in those cities had long since moved to the suburbs and were unaffected by the school bussing issue.

UNAFFECTED BY VIOLENCE

Brown reported that some Jewish parents living in urban Boston had kept their children in the public schools to show their support for school integration but, he said, the community council had not received any complaints about bussing-related problems from any Jewish parents.

Similarly, most Jewish families in Louisville have been unaffected by the violence which has marked bussing integration in that city. Norbert Freuhauf, executive director of the community relations committee of the Louisville Jewish Community Federation, said there has been some bussing of Jewish children. He said problems for such Jewish families involved earlier rising for the children and problems of adjusting afternoon Hebrew school class hours, Freuhauf also reported that all parochial schools in Louisville, including its community-sponsored Jewish day school, had taken public positions they would not accept children to enable them to avoid bussing.

Prospects in Pittsburgh for substantial involvement of Jewish school children in court ordered bussing were reported by Michael Bierman, director of the community relations committee of the United Jewish Federation; and in Wilmington by Nathan Barnett, executive director of the community relations committee of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, Bierman said that while most Pittsburgh Jews, who live in the Squirrel Hill section, would not be affected by an integration plan now under study by the Pittsburgh school board, that plan–if it is approved by the State Human Relations Commission–would affect at least some Jewish children in the Squirrel Hill section. The Pittsburgh plan, as publicly outlined a week ago, would make two elementary schools in Squirrel Hill feeder schools for a new middle (pre-high-school) Florence Reizenstein public school started this year at a point where the Squirrel Hill section adjoins Black areas.

INTEGRATION IN PITTSBURGH

The Reizenstein school was started under an open enrollment policy and has a first year ratio of 53 percent white students and 47 percent Black. Bierman said 20 percent of the white pupils were Jewish children, whose families had voluntarily chosen the school. Under the Pittsburgh integration plan now under study, the two Squirrel Hill schools, each currently about 90 percent white would become 51 percent white and 49 percent Black; and 53 percent white and 47 percent Black. The high school in Squirrel Hill, now about 80 percent white, would become 70 percent white and 30 percent Black. Bierman said if the plan is approved, it will not become effective until the 1976-77 school year, and there is no way to determine now the precise impact on Jewish pupils in the three Squirrel Hill public schools.

When the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ordered school integration in Pittsburgh, with bussing to implement it, three years ago, the Federation community relations committee took the position that bussing was one of several possible alternatives to achieve integration. Bierman said that remains the Federation position. During the past year, he reported, Jews took part in a Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition which had an active role in talks with the Pittsburgh school board on integration proposals. Several key leaders of the Federation committee have been and remain active in the coalition. The coalition president is Edwin Grinberg, a Federation committee member.

In Wilmington, Barnett said most of the 1800 Jewish families had migrated to the suburban areas of New Castle County. At present, he said, there is no school integration order in effect. A federal court has accepted a number of proposals for integration and is expected to propose a redistricting plan, possibly within two months. All of the plans involve redistricting, Barnett said, adding it was almost a certainty that if bussing is ordered to implement redistricting, Jewish school children will be affected. He said Jewish parents were aware of the possibility but there has been relatively little reaction from the parents so far, mainly because of uncertainty as to the kind of plan the court will order, which is not expected to be implemented until next year.

There have been a number of Jewish community meetings in Wilmington to discuss the pending school integration order, Barnett said. He said the Federation had participated in plans for a peaceful implementation through a New Castle County Desegregation Committee, which is now operating on a state-wide basis. He said the position of the Delaware Federation is that the Jewish community will abide by whatever order the court issues.

BOSTON JEWS SUPPORT BUSSING

Jewish communal involvement in the five cities has ranged from active participation in offering proposals for integration plans to keeping a low public profile on the issue. The most intense Jewish participation in the five cities appears to have taken place in Boston, where the community council joined with four other agencies–the Council of Churches, the Social Action Commission of the Boston Diocese, the NAACP and the League of Women Voters–to form a Massachusetts Coalition for Human Rights to support integration. The community council and other Jewish agencies had publicly endorsed school integration and bussing to achieve it. Brown said the community council has two committees–one on urban affairs and one on

In Louisville, the Federation had said publicly it would abide by the decision of the court and had expressed the hope there would not be violence. Jews have not been involved in any of the protests, peaceful or violent, in either Boston or Louisville, the JTA was told.

NO ANTI-SEMITIC REACTIONS

The Detroit Jewish community council has not taken any position on the integration plan which the Detroit school board recently submitted to the federal district court, Kushner said. That plan, which could be implemented by the end of this month for the current school year, would require initial bussing of about 2000 pupils, very few of them Jewish. The Detroit community council is represented on the Coalition for Peaceful Integration formed a number of years ago when debate started on an integration plan. Lewis Grossman, community council president, is a Coalition member. The Coalition, which had previously acted on an ad hoc basis, this year received a federal grant to act in an advisory capacity to the school board, to help the board understand community concerns arising from the bussing plans.

None of the five community relations officials reported any anti-Semitic reactions in their communities to the public stands or activities by the Federation agencies on the integration-by-bussing issue.