“A backwash of hatred and dissension,” continue; to swirl among non Jews and Jews alike in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, as a result of an address delivered at the University of Minnesota by George Lincoln Rock well, leader of the American Nazi Party, the American Jewish World, local weekly new paper, reported here today.
Rockwell spoke on the University of Minnesota Campus last Friday, when 1,500 students and guests, many of them defiantly wearing the Star of David, crowded a campus auditorium, while about 2,500 others listened to his anti-Semitic diatribes over loud speakers. The Stars of David, made available by the Student Zionist Organization, was worn by non-Jews as well as by Jews.
Rockwell received wide press, radio and television coverage during his visit here. Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Louis Milgrom, director of the B’Nai B’rith Education had urged university officials to ban Rockwell. Some Jewish students, however. according to the American Jewish World, identifying themselves as members of Hillel. said they disagreed with Rabbi Milgrom.
Samuel L. Scheiner, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council Minnesota, declaring he believed that some members of his own board of directors may disagree with him, expressed his “regret” over the invitation to Rockwell to speak at the campus. He charged that six Jewish members of the Young Democratic Farmer Labor Party on the campus had backed the Rockwell invitation.
All newspapers here agreed that, while most of Rockwell’s audience booed and jeered him, order had been maintained throughout the Nazi’s visit. The American Jewish World noted editorially, however, that “thousands paid this unspeakable pariah their tribute of personal attention.” The newspaper suggested that the time may have come when a national association of universities “formulate criteria for appropriate and useful utilization of the college platform, to help determine what cause and what type of personality deserve hearings.”
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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.
