Junior Confirms Anti-Semitism in Newton Mugging

Anti-semitic feelings prompted the vicious, belt-buckle beating of a 14-year-old boy by a group of Newton teen-agers last Saturday, Stanley P. Burg, '54 confirmed last night.

Burg attempted to save Stephen M. Berger of Chestnut Hill from the attack of the armed and drunken boys. When he intervened, one of the boys cried, "I'm drunk and I'm tough, and you'd better watch out." Then they struck Burg from all sides and cut him on he scalp with sharpened belt-buckles.

The 16- or 17-year-old leader of the gang admitted to the police that he had planned the attack on a Jewish boy for some time, Burg said. The leader's stepfather is a Jewish criminal lawyer.

Seven or eight boys gathered at his house with knives and previously honed belt-buckies early Saturday evening. There they drank beer before going out in search of a victim in the normally peaceful Newton area.

Burg speculated that the boys chose last Saturday night for the attack because they knew of a young people's dance at near-by Temple Emanuel, a Newton synagogue.

Berger, the young victim, is in Newton-Wellesley Hospital with a possible skull fracture.