Rabbis Told Jews Cannot Combat Black Anti-semitism by Leaving Rights Battle

The “security and safety” of the American Jew are being “threatened by the growing menace of Negro anti-Semitism,” but this situation will not be improved by the withdrawal of Jews from the Negroes’ battle for their rights and equality, a noted sociologist declared here yesterday.

“On the contrary,” Prof. Jerry Hochbaum of Yeshiva University told the Rabbinical Council of America’s 20th annual midwinter conference, “unless the process of polarization of white and Negro is arrested, and unless the social and economic pathology in our cities responsible for this is reduced, it is inevitable that there will be greater upheaval and even violence.” The ills of cities are the same forces responsible for “surfacing anti-Semitism which Jews are now confronting in the militant black community,” he said.

Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman, former vice-president of the Rabbinical Council and currently president of the New York Board of Rabbis, declared, “The Jewish community does not have to defend its credentials as a liberal, compassionate and respected segment of the American population every time an irresponsible fringe member of one group or another attacks us. The Jewish community will not allow itself to be maneuvered into a confrontation with the black people or with any other ethnic group.” Rabbi Klaperman called on the Christain community “to join with us to abort the horrible disease of anti-Semitism.”