Telephone threats against the city building inspector, Leo Berkman, who made the only arrest in the attack on a Brooklyn Yeshiva Tuesday prompted police today to place a watch on the inspector’s home.
The threatening calls followed sentencing of the arrested youth to 18 months in the State Training School, The 15-year-old defendant had been in trouble frequently before and had been on probation since July, it was disclosed in Children’s Court during the hearing. He was sentenced by a Negro Judge.
Two teachers and some 15 children were roughed up in the attack on the United Lubavitcher Yeshiva in the slum-ridden Bedford-Stuyvesant area. The fighting started during luncheon recess when some 50 Negro boys and girls descended on the yeshiva school yard and began pushing and hitting the pupils.
Mr. Berkman, the inspector, who was driving by, stopped his car and ran to the defense of the children, making a citizen’s arrest of the youth, who denied in court that he had anything to do with the fighting. He said he and his wife received today three threatening telephone calls.
ASSOCIATION FOR ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE CONDEMNS THE ATTACK
A spokesman for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemned the assault as “a tragic and shocking revelation of the corroding effect of racial and religious bias.”
The American Jewish Congress in a statement today said “it would be tragic, indeed, if the cordial relations now existing between the responsible elements in the Negro and Jewish communities should be jeopardized by this isolated incident.” At the same time the statement expressed” sadness” over the fact that “Negro children, themselves the victims of ugly racial prejudice, should attempt to release their frustration and bitterness on other innocent children,”
“This street fight, ” the AJCongress statement continued, “underlines the necessity for all of us–white and Negro, Christian and Jew–to redouble our efforts to eliminate discrimination and bigotry in our city and our nation. It also imposes a special obligation on Negro leaders to make certain that the noble and effective concepts of peaceful and non-violent demonstrations in the struggle for civil rights are understood by the entire Negro community, including its children.”
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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.
