N.Y. Whites More Anti-semitic Than Blacks, Rights Commissioner Says

Anti-Semitism in the white community of New York City is much stronger than is black anti-Semitism, the Human Rights Commissioner told a meeting of Reform leaders yesterday. Simeon Golar, speaking on “Improving Black-Jewish Relationships in New York City,” told rabbinic, lay and educational leaders that the troubled Jewish community here has over-reacted to black extremism. Addressing some 150 people at the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Mr. Golar called upon the white middle class, including Jews, not to flee the city but to remain and “help in the civil rights struggle.”

In a related development. Dr. Bernard Mandelbaum, Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) president, today was sworn in as a member of the 15-member Human Rights Commission.

Responding to a question, Mr. Golar denied that responsible Negro leaders have been silent on the black anti-Semitism issue. He said that a number, including Roy Wilkins of the NAACP. had spoken out “forcefully” against it. “The trouble is that the extremists have gotten disproportionate space and time in the press and on television,” he said. Virtually all the anti-Semitic epithets in the racial crisis have come from “black extremists and nuts who have no following whatever until they get an airing on TV and in the press,” he declared.

Albert Vorspan, director of social action programs of the UAHC, also told the meeting of New York area leaders that “there are many grounds for measured confidence that we have turned the corner in the so-called black-Jewish confrontation and that the temperature may be receding to a less feverish level.” He said evidence of this change was:

“The greater restraint by the press and TV which unwittingly contributed earlier to the escalation of hysteria on all sides; the deepening of a frank discussion and Joint action programs between rabbis and black ministers throughout the city; statements in the latest United Federation of Teachers weekly playing down anti-Semitism in the controversial Ocean Hill-Brownsville experimental school district; the increased awareness of community leaders that anti-Semitism and racism poison the wells of this city and must be condemned.” Also, “a growing sense of restraint by some Jewish leaders who recognize the danger of over-reaction and of promoting hysteria and vigilantism by private and self-appointed Jewish groups; the awareness that we cannot solve the city’s problems by obsession with ugly symptoms alone but only by confronting the root problems which spawn rage and hatred; and on the part of public officials, a demonstration of more sensitive understanding of the sensibilities and concerns of all groups in the pursuit of an open. Just and decent community.”