Better Police Protection Prompted by Anti-semitic Rampage

An official of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has called for improved police protection for Forest Hills. Queens, residents after a dozen baseball bat-wielding teenagers rampaged through the Rabbinical Seminary of America in Forest Hills last week, attacking Rabbi Abraham Ginzberg, executive director of the seminary, and students, and ripped religious books and smashed windows. One student was hospitalized with a broken nose and eight others suffered lesser injuries.

According to police, the half-hour rampage appeared to be a spontaneous outburst. A police department spokesman said the seminary, which is in a middle class neighborhood with a substantial Jewish population, had been the scene of several incidents of a similar nature over the last 10 years.

“We deplore the attack on Rabbi Abraham Ginzberg and the yeshiva students of the Rabbinical Seminary of America,” said Howard Weinstein director of ADL’s New York regional office.

Weinstein, citing the incident and noting also the anti-Semitic graffiti painted in the P.S. 144 schoolyard across from the seminary urged that a meeting be convened of community. religious and educational leaders, with police officials present to work out plans to cope with growing area tensions. He offered to provide staff and resources to the community to implement community action.

The ADL official also called for the creation of a committee on youth, under the supervision of the local Community Planning Board. The committee could be modeled after one created by the Howard Beach, Queens, Community Planning Board which meets every two weeks with teenagers and adults to talk out problems, he said. Weinstein added that he has been informed by Irving Luboff, president of the Queens Council of B’nai B’rith and Nathan Naglen ADL commissioner for Queens, that the ADL council of Queens B’nai B’rith will donate $250 toward cost of repairs of the estimated $5000 damage to the seminary.