bbring no protest from the Jewish community. Rather, they
bsaid it would be welcomed.” Woe to a Jewish community
bwith such leaders!
bPerhaps the most tragic and disgraceful display was that
bof the Government of Israel, fresh from years of efforts to
bwin favor with the Russians by soft-pedalling the Soviet
bJewish question and by attempting to silence all Soviet
bJewish militants. Run basically by the same party leaders
bwhom Ben Hecht, in his devastating book Perfidy, exposed
bin all their silence during the Holocaust, the Cabinet of
bIsrael disgraced the Jewish nation by bowing to American
bpressure and declaring on January 17: “The Government of
bIsrael vigorously opposes the employment of acts of ter-
brorism in this (Soviet Jewish) struggle such as those carried
bout recently in the United States and elsewhere.” Thus
bspoke the government whose anti-terror forces shot down
bArabs in Beirut, Nicosia, Rome, Paris, and Norway. And
bone can begin to understand their arresting me and their
brefusal, under United States pressure, to allow me to leave
bthe country to travel to the United States, an act we normally
bassociate with Soviet Russia.
bBut times were changing and not all Jews were prepared
bto follow the Establishment line like the sheep they generally
bwere. The Chairman of the Israel Students Union took issue
bwith his government and cabled a message of support to the
bJDL, while Knesset member Shmuel Tamir, in a radio de-
bbate in Israel, said: “If the JDL harries Soviet diplomats and
bembassies, there’s no reason for us to disassociate from it.”
bA group of Soviet Jews who had been in the forefront of
bthe struggle inside Russia angrily attacked the Jewish lead-
bership and cabled their support for the League, saying:
b“We are convinced the League’s policy and activities are
bmost effective. The Soviet government should be brought to
bunderstand that the liberation of Soviet Jews is preferable to
bendless international complications.” The signers included
bsuch Soviet Jewish heroes as Dov Sperling, Rachel Getz,
bAnatoly Dekatov, Avraham Shifrin, Miriam Gerber, Aryeh
bFalkov, Yosef Schneider, Boris Shlayen, and Mordchai
bLapid. Sperling added a further comment to the effect that
b