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Denies Jews in Anti-klux Mob in Perth Amboy

August 31, 1923
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No Jews were injured nor were any Jews among the leaders of the crowd which Thursday night broke into a Ku Klux meeting and beat up many of its members. Chief of Police Tonnelson, according to the New York World, dclared that the “leaders of the crowd were known to him as members of local Hebrew organizations and the Knights of Columbus.”

Rabbi Nathan Colish of Perth Amboy N.J. denies this, declaring a large part of the town population had witnessed the episode and naturally there was a fair sprinkling of Jews among them, but none of the leaders of the mob were Jews.

Rabbi Colish points out that this is the second anti-Klan outbreak in Perth Amboy and on the first one which took place June 4, it was a Jewish banker, Isaac Alperin, who saved the Klan organizer, Rev. Heywood, from attack when a mob of Klan opponents rushed forward to apparently carry him off.

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