(Jewish Daily Bulletin)
Joseph E. Bernstein, President of the New Jersey Theatre Corporation and for twelve years a member of the Jersey City Board of Education, charged that a newspaper advertisement barring Jews from her house indicates that Mrs. Mary L. Raymond is prejudiced against her Jewish pupils. An investigation was begun by the Board of Education.
Mrs. Raymond owns a double house in this city. In newspapers she advertised recently for tenants for the six rooms on the top floor, adding “no Hebrews or children.”
At a meeting of the School Board Wednesday night Mr. Bernstein brought up the advertisement and said that such a dislike would not allow Jewish pupils to be “comfortable” with Mrs. Raymond. Saying that he was objecting to her as a teacher and not a property owner, he declared: “If Hebrews are objectionable in this case, this teacher is objectionable to the Jewish taxpowers of this city.”
In a statement to newspaper representatives, Mrs. Raymond said: “I have never discriminated against Jewish students and I have never had a complaint about it,” she said. “In such a small house I find it more congenial to live with people of my own faith, we necessarily see so much of each other. I find some of my Jewish neighbors lovely.
“As for children, everybody knows they are destructive tenants.
“When I taught in School No. 32 a large part of my pupils were Jews, and they found me fair. In my present school I have only two Jewish boys, in my machine shop classes. I am not bigoted.”
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.
