Charges that Jews on Chicago’s West Side are being terrorized by anti-Semitic gangs were made here this week in an open letter to Mayor Martin H, Kennelly by Rabbi Leonard C. Mishkin, educational director of the Associated Talmud Torahs.
Rabbi Mishkin, complained of inadequate police protection for the 20,000 Jews he said lived in the Greater Lawndale District and asserted that although Mayor Kennelly had promised a citizens’ delegation last summer to increase police protection in the district, conditions there have deteriorated.
He cited a long list of incidents involving attacks on rabbis, theological students and other men and women in the district in recent weeks and charged that in a number of the attacks, the hoodlums shouted anti-Semitic slogans.
One attack listed by Rabbi Mishkin occurred as worshippers were returning home on a Friday night after synagogue services. In a majority of the cases cited, the culprits were described as teenagers. The attacks take place, Rabbi Mishkin declared, to the almost complete absence of police in the district. He called upon the Mayor to order adequate policing of the area and warned that “you must not relegate an entire community to hooliganism, hoodlumery, thievery, incendiarism, barbarism and slummery.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
