To the Editor:

I have read with considerable interest Morris Freedman’s discussion of the Knickerbocker case. Most of the published accounts of this case have been so intensely ex parte and so distorted by emotional partisanship that COMMENTARY has rendered a real service in presenting this temperate and unbiased report. Those close to the incidents described may disagree with Mr. Freedman as to certain minor details, but on the whole he has given a fair and judicious report.

On the campus as at the Hillel Foundation at CCNY Downtown, student leaders would agree wholeheartedly with the “thoughtful Jewish community leader” whose opinion was quoted in Mr. Freedman’s final paragraph as a fitting conclusion for his article. I would add that the story published in Communist propaganda organs to the effect that “reactionary pressures on Hillel stemming from the hush-hush policy of B’nai B’rith . . . was responsible for the failure of Hillel chapters of other colleges to support the strike” is sheer nonsense. The only pressures exerted on the students at City College Downtown came from those who backed the strike, and the students refused to join the strikers only because of their logical appraisal of the facts which have been in the main so well presented by Mr. Freedman.

Rabbi Victor Eppstein
B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation
The City College of New York (Downtown)

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