Merely citing percentages of Jewish leaders does not adequately indicate
the extent of Jewish influence, however, because it fails to take account of
the personal characteristics of Jewish radicals as a talented, educated and
ambitious group, but also because efforts were made to recruit gentiles
as “window dressing” to conceal the extent of Jewish dominance (Klehr,
1978: 40; Rothman & Lichter, 1982: 99). Lyons (1982: 81) quotes a gentile
Communist who said that many working-class gentiles felt that they were
recruited in order to “diversify the Party’s ethnic composition.” The inform-
ant recounts his experience as a gentile representative at a communist-spon-
sored youth conference:
Philosophia
1 3
It became increasingly apparent to most participants that virtually all of the
speakers were Jewish New Yorkers. Speakers with thick New York accents
would identify themselves as “the delegate from the Lower East Side” or
“the comrade from Brownsville.” Finally the national leadership called a
recess to discuss what was becoming an embarrassment. How could a sup-
posedly national student organization be so totally dominated by New York
Jews? Finally, they resolved to intervene and remedy the situation by asking
the New York caucus to give “out-of-towners” a chance to speak. The con-
vention was held in Wisconsin. (CofC: 73)
This relates to my personal experience:
As a personal note from when I was a graduate student in philosophy at the
University of Wisconsin in the 1960s, the overrepresentation of Jews in the
New Left, especially during the early stages of protest to the Vietnam War, was
rather obvious to everyone, so much so that during a “Teach-in” on the war
held during the 1960s, I was recruited to give a talk in which I was to explain
how an ex-Catholic from a small town in Wisconsin had come to be converted
to the cause. The geographical (East Coast) and family origins (Jewish) of
the vast majority of the movement were apparently a source of concern. The
practice of having gentile spokespersons for movements dominated by Jews is
noted in several sections of this volume and is also a common tactic against
anti-Semitism (MacDonald, 1998b/2003: 195–200 [see also below regarding
Jewish pro-immigration activism in the 1950s]). Rothman and Lichter
(1982: 81) quote another observer of the New Left scene at the University of
Wisconsin as follows: “I am struck by the lack of Wisconsin-born people and
the massive preponderance of New York Jews. The situation at the University
of Minnesota is similar.” His correspondent replied: “As you perceived, the
Madison left is built on New York Jews.” (CofC: 78, note 13)
