N. C. R. A. C. Reports on Changing Neighborhoods, Cites Jewish Problems

The problems posed for Jews in the population changes which are taking place in many American cities are analyzed in a report made public today by the National Community Relations Advisory Council. The report deals with the interracial and inter-religious conflicts which develop in neighborhoods where new groups move in.

Pointing out that Jews are quite often involved in changing neighborhoods, both as older residents in neighborhoods into which new groups move and as newcomers themselves to neighborhoods in which Jews previously have not lived, the report says:

“Anti-Jewish discrimination in housing is highly localized and generally covert. Where some particular block or apartment house excludes Jews, equally attractive and desirable housing usually is available to them quite close by. Prejudice against Jews, however, still is widespread, and sometimes the purchase or rental of a dwelling by a Jewish family in a neighborhood in which Jews had not previously lived has been known to set in motion the same cycle of resentment, antagonism, and flight by the older residents that has created so many ghettos in and around our cities.”

More often, however, the report observes, Jews themselves are the “older residents” who are called upon to accommodate to the moving-in of other minority group families. In these circumstances, a special responsibility devolves upon Jewish agencies to prevent or allay tensions, to try to avoid Jewish depopulation of the neighborhood with resultant falling off in support for Jewish institutions and services, and to guard against other harmful effects.

“Major efforts may be necessary among the Jewish residents, since some in the Jewish community are ignorant of the social and personal costs of changing neighborhoods,” the report states. “Many are susceptible to the fear and panic that often occur when other minority group families move in. Not everyone recognizes the relationship between discrimination against Jews and discrimination against other minorities. Many fail to realize that, when they run away from the problems of a changing neighborhood, they may create similar problems in the neighborhoods to which they flee.”

The solution to the problem of hostility and conflict in changing neighborhoods “will be found only in the elimination of discrimination in housing,” the NCRAC says. It calls the intergroup tensions that arise under present conditions “evils in their own right, that require treatment and that handicap the struggle against discrimination.”