Mayor, Jewish Groups Meet on Clash in Brooklyn; More Meetings Planned

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), said today there would be a follow-up meeting soon to the three-hour meeting yesterday at which Mayor Edward Koch asked for a condemnation of the Orthodox Jews involved in a clash with police last Saturday at the 66th Precinct station house in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn following the pre-down street robbery and stubbing death of Irving Sussman, a 65-year old Orthodox Jew.

Hoenlein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the follow-up meeting, which he said would take place “within a couple of days,” would be part of “an on-going process which will involve a variety of actions and meetings” to seek more effective protection against street crime, not only in Borough Park but throughout the city and to foster better relations between police and the Jewish community.

The Mayor made his request for condemnation after repeating earlier statements that violence could not be condoned regardless of the source. Hoenlein said that Koch’s request was one of a number of issues discussed by the 50 delegates during the two hours of deliberations after the Mayor and his entourage left. The delegates agreed they had no authority to approve such a condemnation without prior approval from the organizations they represented. Hoenlein, who said all 26 JCRC member groups were represented, stated that this was one of the issues the representatives would bring back to their groups for consideration.

The JCRC will seek to determine the causes of the incident last Saturday at the police station, concerning which there have been several published versions of the specific events — “what really happened” — and to study ways to prevent such incidents from happening again. Hoenlein said that there have been increased tensions between police and Jewish residents of Borough Park and other neighborhoods, stemming to a large degree from the manpower cuts the city police department has suffered because of the city’s financial problems.

SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEM

“Our assessment of the meeting was that it was cordial and very productive,” Hoenlein said. He said the officials Koch brought with him indicated how serious the Mayor considered the problem. They included Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo; Ronald Gault, special advisor to Koch; two special aides, Marc Mishann and Dan Wolfe; and Press Secretary Maureen Connally.

Borough Park representatives at the three-hour session, held at the office of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, included Rabbi David Greenzweig, president of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park; Rabbi Moshe Schmidman, Council director, and Noah Dear, district manager for Community Planning Board 12 of Borough Park.

ONE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

Both the police and the Jews were criticized by Rabbi Hertz Frankel, honorary president of the Ohel Children’s Home, a major Orthodox institution in Borough Park and a Brooklyn Hasidic leader, who said he was present during the melee Saturday. Frankel told the JTA that a number of unidentified Orthodox Jews visited a number of synagogues last Saturday to report on the stabbing death of Sussman, a retired plumber.

A Brooklyn grand jury has started hearing testimony in the stabbing death, for which police have arrested Joe Julbe, a 20-year-old factory worker; his brother, James, 17 and Fidel Rivera, 16, and a 14-year-old boy as a witness. The Julbe brothers are being held without bail as suspects in the murder. Sussman was en route home from a synagogue when he was murdered.

Frankel said the Jews urged congregants to participate in a peaceful demonstration planned in front of the 66th Precinct station, adding that the visits and appeals by the Orthodox Jews to worshippers were undertaken without any clearance or guidance from appropriate rabbinic authorities.

He called the synagogue visits and the march of the Orthodox Jews to the police station “a spontaneous reaction” to the killing of Sussman.

Frankel said that “unfortunately, the situation got out of hand.” He said the underlying cause was anger by the Orthodox Jews about “the whole system of justice.” He said muggings have been increasing in recent years.

HUNDREDS OF ANTI-SEMITIC INCIDENTS

Marvin Schick, who served Mayor John Lindsay as liaison to the Jewish community, said there had been complaints of “hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents” in Borough Park each year. Most of these, he said, involved only graffiti, epithets and pushing incidents but there have also been rocks hurled through synagogue and yeshiva windows. In 1975, two synagogues and the homes of two rabbis were firebombed.

Discussing what he had been told by Orthodox Jews who went into the police station, Frankel said that about 200 such Jews went into the station to complain about the alleged police delay in responding to calls for help for Sussman. Frankel said that the sergeant on duty immediately placed a “10-13” alarm — a call for help for police from other police.

The rabbi said two squad cars from nearby precinct houses responded almost immediately, rushed into the 66th Precinct with clubs swinging “and went crazy.” He scoffed at precinct reports that 62 police were injured, nothing that only one needed hospital attention. He said he believed it was a peaceful demonstration until the police started to swing their clubs.