middle grades book 1970s about immigrant boy, bullies, city, dark

This is a book I remember reading in the 1970's in the US, about the size of a Scholastic paperback chapter book for middle grades. I don't remember much, but it was about a boy whose family immigrated from Eastern Europe where they had been persecuted, might have been Jewish, might have been set in recent past e.g., 1950's. I remember him being followed and bullied by bigger boys who were American, and it was in a big city, probably NY, maybe Chicago.

The part that I really remember is that he hid from the boys in an alley or construction area where it was pitch dark, and he was thinking about how the dark was his friend, he felt safer in the dark, and that was based on his experiences in Europe.

I asked about this once, and it's not Tomas Takes Charge.