A projected rally by an American Nazi group here next Sunday will be countered by a massive interfaith demonstration on the campus of Northwestern University, it was announced today. Rabbi Peter Knobel of Beth Bern Congregation told a press conference that this would be the response of Evanston’s Jewish community and members of all faiths in this city of 80,000.
“The leadership of the Evanston Jewish community has spent a great deal of time in agonized consideration at this question, ” he said. “The Jewish community at Evanston and the Public Affairs Committee of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago have accepted an invitation from the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at Northwestern University to cooperate in a massive informational and inspirational rally which the students are sponsoring on October 19.”
The Nazi group, said to consist of fewer than a dozen persons, had applied to the Evanston authorities for a permit to hold their rally on Yom Kippur but they were turned down by Mayor James Lytle and the City Council. They were, however, granted a permit for Oct. 19. A spokesperson for Knobel said this was not the some group that planned a march in the heavily Jewish populated suburb of Skokie, III. two years ago. The spokesperson was unable to identify the Nazi group by name.
Its rally is scheduled to be held in Lovelace Park at 2 p.m., two hours later than the rally on the Northwestern campus which is about three miles away. Knobel said that if the Nazis do hold their proposed rally, a number of individuals from the campus demonstration plan to be present “to bear dignified witness to the distress at seeing Nazi symbols in Evanston.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
