Marked Post-war Increase in Employment Discrimination Against Jews Reported by Jews

The final report of the Fair Employment Practices Committee, just issued by the White House, reports “marked” post-war increase in employment discrimination against Jews.

Covering the period up to June 30, 1946, when the committee expired, the report warns against eruption of tensions in future months, “just as they did in more than 20 American cities after the first World War.” While noting the need for local action, and changes in community attitudes, the report emphasizes the basic necessity for “a strongly expressed and federally administered policy around which such action and opinion may be oriented and given sanction.”

The FEPC liberally uses material gathered in the employment survey made in 15 cities by the National Community Relations Advisory Council, and which covered approximately 80 percent of the Jewish population of the country. The three major conclusions of the study are cited as: “1. There has been a marked rise in discriminatory practices against Jews since V-J Day which is likely to be further accelerated as manpower shortages are cased. 2. Discrimination against Jewish war veterans follows the same pattern and occurs with the same frequency as against non-veterans. 3. The amount of discrimination in cities with strong FEPC’s is far lower than in other cities and suggests that such legislation does succeed in reducing discrimination.”

The St. Louis Council of the American Jewish Community Relations Council prepared a report for the FEPC which described anti-Jewish discrimination in the St. Louis area as “less intense than for colored workers, but much more severe than discrimination against Catholics.”

A similar study conducted for the FEPC in Detroit by the Jewish Community Council, revealed “that Jewish workers in the Detroit area experience comparable difficulties in obtaining jobs. The many employment agency heads interviewed admitted freely their own attitudes toward the placement of Jewish applicants, and said as elsewhere that employers” demands governed their action.”

The Chicago Bureau of Jewish Employment Problems especially studied the extent of anti-Jewish discrimination in the Chicago area, and reported “a sharp upward trend in Chicago’s loosening labor market.”

An FEPC field report from Minneapolis stated that “the major problems in the field of human relations in Minneapolis are not heavily reflected in Negro-White relations, but are essentially of an anti-Semitic nature…In 1945, anti-Semitic activities broke out into the open…there were assaults on individual Jews and particularly Jewish children in the parks. Other evidences of anti-Semitism were to be found in the distribution of scurrilous literature and in the expressions of teachers in classrooms.”