The manager of a local radio station has rejected charges of anti-Semitism leveled against it by Albert Shanker, president of the United Federation of Teachers, in connection with an anti-Jewish poem read by a controversial Negro school teacher on a program broadcast last Dec. 26. Frank Millspau, of the listener-supported WBAI-FM, said yesterday that there was anti-Semitic feeling on the part of some Negroes and anti-Negro feeling in the Jewish community. He said it was “the responsibility of the news media in general and WBAI in particular to make a full disclosure of these biases and to fully explore their depths and their origins.”
The poem, purportedly written by a 15-year-old Negro school boy, was read on the air by Leslie R. Campbell, an advisor to the Afro-American Teachers Association and a teacher at Junior High School 271 in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district. The poem, dedicated to Mr. Shanker, began with the verse, “Hey, Jew boy, with that yarmulka on your head/ you pale-faced Jew boy, I wish you were dead.” The UFT has lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission charging anti-Semitism. It is also demanding the dismissal of Mr. Campbell who was suspended for allegedly harassing white teachers during the recent New York City teachers’ strike but was recently reinstated when a state panel found insufficient evidence against him. Mr. Millspau accused Mr. Shanker of trying to get support for an unpopular strike by raising fears of anti-Semitism.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
