[7] Yet shortly thereafter, the local Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported: Although this is his first year at the helm as mentor, Dale Zysman is said to have already tired of the job.
[8] By the end of the month, the newspaper was reporting that Zysman was one of four coaches expected to be fired for their team's poor season performance.
Members included Sam Krieger, Eve Dorf, and her husband Ben Davidson,[3][11] as well as Alfred J. Brooks, Myra Page, Benjamin Mandel, and Rachel Ragozin.
According to Harvey Klehr, "The American Federation of Teachers' Local 5 in New York, the union's largest affiliate, was [Communist] Party stronghold.
[16] In 1939, he was listed as a party official using the name "Jack Hardy, identified as a New York schoolteacher" when providing visa for a false passport obtained for Fred E. Beal (fugitive from justice and a leader of the 1929 Gastonia strike).
[18] In 1940, U.S. Representative Martin Dies, Jr. (Democrat - Texas, 2nd district) had already marked him out as a subversive: "Dale Zysman, teacher in the public schools of New York, has written books for the Party under the name of 'Jack Hardy'.
[20] By March 1941, Zysman was implicated again: A conference of Communists attended by history teachers from both Brooklyn College and City College to lay out a broad program of publication of pamphlets and brochures giving the Communist interpretation of history was described to the Rapp-Coudert legislative committee today at a public hearing.
'The purpose,' he said under questioning by committee counsel Paul Windels, 'was to discuss a program for proving the validity of the thesis the Communists were then using that Communism was Americanism of the 20th Century.'
On June 5, 1941, William Levich, former assistant director of the Workers School, and Benjamin Mandel testified before the Coudert committee that Zysman, then a Manhattan P.S.
That same day, Alfred J. Brooks, a teacher at Brownx P. S. 61, and Howard Selsam, a professor at Brooklyn College, refused to testify.
The facts of the matter are that nearly two years ago I addressed a communication to the Board of Superintendents advising them that "I have published several books under the pen name of Jack Hardy."
[30] On September 9, 1941, Zysman went en trial at the Board of Education for refusing to testify before the Rapp-Coudert legislative committee, investigating subversive activities in public schools.
On September 17, 1941, the New York Sun ran the headline "Zysman Identified as Red: Teachers Union Leader Tried in Absence After He Walks Out on Hearing."
89, Manhattan, and vice president of the Teachers Union, today walked out on a trial begun by the Board of Education to inquire into charges that he had been guilty of subversive activities and, under the party name of Jack Hardy, had written a number of tracts expounding communistic doctrines.
The Board's counsel, Charles C. Weinstein, declared that charges served on Zysman in July been itemized and constituted a bill of particulars.
In his 1952 memoir, Chambers noted, "I knew personally just one member of its staff—Ben Mandel, its able chief researcher... the former business manager of the Daily Worker.