Newspaper Page Text
Friday, April 21, 1967
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
As We Were Saying
By ROBERT SEGAL
(A Seven Arts Eeature)
Harold Laski is credited with
a trenchant observation: “You
can peel an onion, skin by skin;
but you cannot skin a tiger, paw
by paw. The tiger’s business is
vivisection; and he will get you
first.”
So it is that when one gets to
peel.ng oil sjme oi me layers
of the trouble in Wayne, New
Jersey, where a recent school
board election was shot through
with anti-Jewish talk and be
havior, one finds that old buga
boo, the restrictive real estate
covenant. There’s the tiger’s real
claw.
It will be recalled that in
Wayne, some p liars of civic vir
tue maintained right down to the
s-noei election wire that there
was nothing anti-Jewish about the
statement or a key school board
member, Newton Miller. Mr. Mil
ler had said: “Most Jewish people
are liberals, especially when it
comes to spending for education.
If they are elected, it would be
only two more vdtes for a ma
jority and Wayne would be in
real financial trouble.” For good
measure, he said school Christmas
celebrations might be a casualty.
And when two school board in
cumbents, both Jewish, were de
feated, the people who think con
troversy is unAmerican and un
godly, sad wtll, they weren’t
licked because they were Jews,
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they were linked because they
favored a bigger school budget.
While these civic milquetoasts
were thus rationalizing, they soon
found they couldn't possibly ex
plain why a Protestant — David
Carili-—who held the same posi
tion on the school budget as the
two Jewish incumbents main
tained, led the ticket.
And then came the revelation
about Wayne’s property discrim
ination. A trio of judges in New
Jersey’s Appellate Division of the
Superior Court ruled that a res
trictive clause in effect barring
Jews from owning property in a
section of Wayne is null and
void.
With good reason, the New
Jersey jurists added that no court
will rule otherwise. For when
such “gentlemen’s agreements”
about the sale of property came
up for review in the Supreme
Court of the United States nearly
two decades ago, that body’s ac
tion reflected the people’s indig
nation over such indignities. This
was at the time that the United
Nations gave great promise of se
curing the rights of all, when
President Truman’s Civil Rights
study committee reported, when
honorable men and women every
where still recognized the horror
of Hitlerism.
Supported by the National As
sociation of Real Estate Boards
and attacked by church, labor and
Jewish community relations
groups, the restrictive convenants
were ruled unenforceable by the
courts, but not unlawful between
parties. In other words, the Su
preme Court forbade any court
to enforce restrictive convenants
even though it did not say such
contracts could not be made
among individuals. In the view'
of Charles Abrams, one of the
nation’s foremost authorities on
housing law, “the Court extract
ed the judicial teeth which gave
the covenant their bite.” Abrams
pointed out further: “The decis
ions also removed an important
rallying point around which hate
groups had been corralling and
inciting owners.”
Wayne’s restrictive convenants
stand in the tradition of “Gentle
man’s Agreements” in other parts
of the country. They are a sorry
commentary on those who feel
superior because they were born
on the side of the tracks removed
from the dust and cinders. Those
compacts not to sell to “undesir
ables” are more sharply written
in Grosse Point, Michigan. There,
private investigators have been
hired by the Property Owners
Association to apply a so called
point system to prospective home
buyers. Those of Polish extrac
tion needed 50 points to pass the
Grosse Point test. The Italian and
Greek buyer had to score 65
points. And Jews had to scrounge
around and accumulate 85 points.
You also have to pass a test con
cerning your mode of dress; and
heaven help you if you were
swarthy.
The tiger, as Harold Laski
noted, is in the business of vivi
section. Sometimes people with
property, lacking the security that
comes with true aristocracy—not
of birth — but of achievement,
grace, and understanding, yield
Page Three
to the tiger in their natures and
roam loose in the Waynes and
Grosse Points of America.
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