The American Civil Liberties Union said in a report issued yesterday that an abnormal growth of anti-Semitism in Peekskill, N.Y., prodded into a mood of violence by the local press, was the basic cause for the riots which broke out there last summer during a concert at which Paul Robeson appeared.
The report, whose signatories included Rabbi Irving Miller, president of the American Jewish Congress, declared: “The unprovoked rioting was fostered largely by anti-Semitism, growing out of local resentment against the increasing influx of Jewish summer residents from New York. It was heightened by the area’s tradition of political violence.”
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.