Christian Action

There has been plenty of talk against antiSemitism. Last week one group of Protestant ministers decided to do something about it. The occasion was a rash of minor outrages against Jews in Manhattan's Washington Heights section, similar to those in Boston (TIME, Nov. 1) and in other U.S. cities.

Prime mover against this unchristian hoodlumism was a Methodist, Dr. Allen E. Claxton of the Broadway Temple. He organized an interfaith (Christian and Jewish) group, got 90% of Washington Heights Protestant pastors to preach Sunday sermons against antiSemitism, carry on a day-by-day agitation for religious and racial tolerance. Recognizing that anti-Semitism is not wholly a one-sided matter, the rabbis in the group will also preach to their Jewish congregations on tolerance. Children will receive special instruction at Sunday schools and recreation centers.

It was high time. Last week B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League* published 19 affidavits about anti-Semitic acts. Said the League: "Nearly every temple and synagogue in the Washington Heights area has been desecrated. Building walls have been marked with the swastika, and pornographically hateful descriptions of the Jews. At least two Protestant churches in the area have been similarly desecrated. . . . The assault incidents have a uniform pattern. In each case the hoodlum demands to know the religion of his intended victim. If the victim admits he is Jewish, or if the hoodlum concludes that this is the fact... an assault ensues. The age range of the anti-Semitic hoodlums is 10 to 14. They travel in groups of two to ten. They roam the streets looking for little Jewish boys to assault and for Jewish property to desecrate. Because of the always-present anti-Jewish element in the assault, the situation, reasonably, cannot be described as ordinary juvenile delinquency."

Some New York City outrages revealed by the League (and by the press) :

>Jewish boys were beaten, knifed, some went to the hospital. Jewish girls were threatened, pushed around. Some escaped harm by saying they were Italians or Roman Catholics.

> One synagogue's honor roll was defaced with "Jew Boys" scrawled among the names of servicemen. One rabbi had his shingle torn down, his window stoned, his beard yanked by hoodlums as he walked on the street. Another reported that children sneaked into his open synagogue, dumped the prayer books in toilets.

>A rabbi reported: "On one occasion the 'mazooza' [a packet approximately four inches long, which contains a portion of the Scriptures and is nailed to the doorpost of the entrance to the congregation, and is regarded as a very sacred object] was found to be denied and smeared with manure. I, personally, saw that desecration and I myself wiped the surrounding area."

New York City police were not unduly excited. Said Washington Heights's Inspector Joseph Bannon: "The situation is much exaggerated. Things are very calm and collected in Washington Heights." Said Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine: "AntiSemitism is always a problem in a large, heterogeneous city such as New York." But he ordered an increase in mobile detective patrol in the affected areas.

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What happens when anti-Semitism engulfs whole populations is gruesomely illustrated in The Black Book of Polish Jewry (Roy Publishers; $3), an account of the Nazis' systematic extermination of the Polish Jews, taken from the official records of the Polish Government in Exile, the German Government, and various Jewish sources. The book's 343 pages and five dozen pictures report some of the darkest atrocities in the long, dark history of human inhumanity.

* B'nai B'rith is the world's biggest Jewish charitable and philanthropic organization. Its Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism.

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