Jewish Community Leaders Do Not Feel Menaced by Kkk in Area but Angered by Publicity Over-kill

Leaders of Far Rockaway’s Jewish community said today that they were caught completely by surprise by the disclosure of the existence of a Ku Klux Klan chapter in the Rockaways, made by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League yesterday. Officials of the predominantly Orthodox, middle-class community of 35-40,000 told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they did not feel “menaced” by the presence of the racist organization in their vicinity.

But they said they were very angry that the ADL had failed to inform or consult with the local community, which includes four B’nai B’rith lodges, about its investigation before the story broke in yesterday’s New York Post. Sidney Lipstein, president of the Jewish Community Council of Far Rockaway, said he had expressed a “strong protest” to Howard Weinstein, New York regional director of the ADL. No ADL official was immediately available for comment.

The Rockaways comprise a seashore peninsula in the borough of Queens with an overall population of about 144,000. Jewish sources estimated that as much as 80 percent of the population is Jewish but Jews are now concentrated at the eastern end of the peninsula, near the Nassau County line. The rest of the peninsula, once a popular resort of hotels and summer bungalows, has deteriorated over the past two decades.

Community leaders contacted by the JTA seemed less disturbed by the fact that a small KKK chapter was active in the Rockaways than by the damage the disclosure could do the image of the community. Both Lipstein and Marvin Leff, president of Young Israel of Far Rockaway, stressed that the community was “stable” and that the Jewish families, mostly home owners, were “committed” to staying there and were, in fact, attracting new families from other parts of the city. There are about 12 Orthodox synagogues and two Conservative, but no Reform congregations, Leff said.

ADL RAPPED FOR ITS APPROACH

Lipstein said he was especially concerned by the stories in the Post and in the New York Times today in which ADL officials seemed to imply that the local Klan chapter was established because of the changing racial make-up of the Rockaways.

He conceded that low-income public housing projects in other sections such as Edgemere and Arverne had brought an influx of Blacks and Hispanics in recent years, many of them welfare clients. But he insisted that this has not affected the Far Rockaway community where most of the peninsula’s Jews are located. Leff told the JTA that race relations have been stable, there have been no racial confrontations between Jews and non-whites and the problems are no different from those in other parts of the city.

Leff said that if the ADL felt that a problem existed, it should have consulted with the local Jewish community, Rabbi Ephraim Stum, executive vice-president of the National Council of Young Israel and a leader in the Young Israel of Far Rockaway, said that the growing population of non-whites in the surrounding area posed some problems but “not a bad problem.”

UNINFORMED ABOUT KKK ANTI-SEMITISM

Sturm also told the JTA that many of the Jewish residents of Far Rockaway were completely unaware that the Klan was as anti-Semitic as it was anti-Black. He said he invited a group of people to his home last night to “enlighten” them as to the nature of the Klan. He explained that the younger generation and older people, largely immigrants who arrived in the United States after 1948, knew nothing of the Klan’s anti-Semitic history. He said they reacted to the newspaper reports as another instance of conflict between blue collar Irish Catholics and Blacks from which the Jewish community could remain aloof.

Sturm also stressed the geography of the Rockaways, noting that the Klan center was located some 90 blocks or five miles from Far Rockaway. He said that virtually all Jews have moved from that area. Young Israel closed its synagogue there last January and the Conservative synagogue re-located a year ago.

According to the ADL disclosure, the Klan “klavern” or chapter is the first discovered within the precincts of New York City since the 1920s. It consists of about 50 members, mostly unemployed construction workers, blue collar workers and Vietnam veterans. Most are under 30 and virtually all are Irish Catholics, an anomaly since the Klan traditionally has been anti-Catholic as well as anti-Semitic and anti-Black. Local police were aware of the Klan’s presence but noted that so far it has not engaged in illegal activities or caused any trouble.