Group Relations Specialists Urge Jews to Take Balanced View of Negro Anti-semitism

American Jews were urged, in a report by 83 inter-group relations specialists of all faiths, to take a balanced view of anti-Semitism among Negroes and other elements of American society and to try to eliminate its root causes–racial, economic and civic injustices–rather than to withdraw from efforts to improve society.

The report, published this week, emerged from a conference of the Negro, white, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish specialists held last September under the sponsorship of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, the coordinating body for Jewish community relations in the United States. Jordan C. Band, chairman of the NCRAC, stressed that all who subscribed to the report did so as individuals rather than as representatives of their respective organizations. Of the 83 signatories, 28 expressed reservations or exceptions to the reports findings and recommendations.

Anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice were seen by the professionals as growing out of the frustrations and discontent caused by inequities in society, the report said. “Conditions that breed ignorance, want, frustration and alienation are potent generators of anti-Semitism,” they asserted, “among Negroes, as among others.” But for the Jewish community to be “deflected from its support and advocacy of equality for Negroes because of anti-Semitism among some Negroes” would be “a repudiation of the tenet of equal justice that is one of the foundation stones of the Jewish tradition” and would exacerbate rather than reduce anti-Semitism.

The report said it was the consensus of the signatories that despite widespread latent anti-Semitism, “Jewish group status and security are unprecedentedly high in America.” It warned, however, that the “pervasive climate of strife and tumult…rising crime, changing moral codes, rebelling youth, decaying cities…spreading frustration, disillusion and discontent…prepare the psychic soil in which latent anti-Semitism may become overt and virulent.” The report did not rule out an “engulfing wave of anti-Semitism” resulting from “severe economic recession, escalating urban turmoil, adverse international developments” or other circumstances that might turn the nation to the extreme right or extreme left. The signatories thought that right-wing extremism is at present a “more imminent threat” than left-wing radicalism but agreed that a major upheaval resulting in an outbreak of overt anti-Semitism was “not dangerously likely in the foreseeable future.”

The report warned that “social protest must not be mistaken for racial or religious prejudice; antagonisms arising out of conflicts of interests among Negroes and Jews as individuals must not be confused with anti-Semitism on the one hand or breed anti-Negro attitudes on the other.” The report also warned Jews to “expect criticism of Jews or attacks upon Jews as a group by those who oppose Jewish stands on controversial social issues.” However, it said, “such criticisms must not be mistaken for anti-Semitism” and “antagonism toward Jews genuinely based on substantive disagreements must not be impugned.”

Developments in the Middle East were cited as possible sources of tension between Jews and Christians in America. The report noted Jewish “disappointment” at the failure of the organized Christian community to issue “a greater spontaneous outcry…against the Arab threat to annihilate the Jews of Israel.” But it credited Christian leadership with systematic opposition to anti-Semitism, for “efforts to counteract the charge of deicide”, and for declarations of Vatican Council II and of the World Council of Churches and other international Christian bodies aimed at eliminating anti-Jewish thinking.

With regard to the Negro-Jewish confrontation, the report saw for the present and near future “competitiveness and clashing interests” arising from Negro demands for more places in fields where Jews are heavily represented, such as government jobs, school-teaching, social work, academic life and the arts, and out of the pressures for Negro ownership of business in predominantly black neighborhoods. “The important thing,” the report stated, “is to recognize the nature of the crisis and, together with allies, to protect the American pluralistic democratic process…Hence the entire Jewish community is and must be involved…and the community relations program is an integral and necessary part of the advancement of Jewish continuity, distinctiveness and creativity.”