THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 14
Chapter 1: Soviet Jewry: I Am My Brother’s Keeper
 
 
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14 The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bevery passing JDL incident, now boiled over. Bitter protests bwere lodged with the American government, and in Mos- bcow CBS correspondent William Cole was ousted from the bSoviet Union.

bAnd in July, the JDL learned that its political plan was bcorrect and had begun to bear fruit.

bA phone call to the JDL offices, at that time located in a bhuge, dingy office loft on West 42nd Street, was received bfrom the US Mission to the United Nations. It was Ambas- bsador Yost himself and he requested me to come see him at bthe earliest possible moment.

bHurrying over to the mission, I was immediately taken up bto Mr. Yost’s office. He began by saying that JDL efforts bwere not helping the Jews of the Soviet Union but were, binstead, hurting Soviet-American relations that Washington bhad so painfully built up. He added that he feared that bfurther JDL actions would invite Soviet retaliation and that bthe US-USSR détente would be endangered. (Mr. Yost also bexpressed thoughts on the question of alleged threats and battacks by JDL on Arabs, but that is for another chapter.)

bI listened to Mr. Yost with feelings of deep satisfaction band gratification. If the United States really feared a threat bto the détente which both it and the Soviets wanted so badly, bthat was exactly what the whole JDL plan against the Soviets bwas aiming at! It was this point that American Jews failed to bgrasp, as they looked at each action without its context and bwith the usual lack of imagination, political acumen, and bprophetic sense of destiny that marks the pygmy generation bof our times.

bThe violence of the JDL against the Soviets was in reality bpart of a political program, based on shrewd understanding of bpolitical realities and human nature. We began with the bpremise that silence on any issue is usually a mask for impo- btency or unwillingness to act, but always a guarantee of bdisaster for the victim at issue. Silence and quiet diplomacy b(whatever that term meant) had proved to be graveyards for bEuropean Jewry before, especially during World War II, band would inevitably be the same for Soviet Jewry. The first bstep in any program of rescue lay, we knew, in making the b 

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THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 14
Chapter 1: Soviet Jewry: I Am My Brother’s Keeper