278	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bAnd so, when on the morning of our giant demonstration bin Washington in March 1971, a group of Nazis suddenly bappeared on Pennsylvania Avenue blithely carrying signs bcalling for elimination of Jews, they were pummeled, teeth bknocked out, left bleeding, and saved from worse only by bthe untimely intervention of the police. And when the Ku bKlux Klan burned crosses in Hightstown, New Jersey, in bApril 1971, we sent a hundred members to march openly bthrough the center of the town and, in the words of the JDL bPhiladelphia chapter chairman Rabbi Harold Novoseller, b“The people over there knew we were coming and they bknew why. We planned to show the Klan in language they bunderstand that if they mess with the Jewish community bthey’re going to have to deal with the JDL.” Philadelphia, bincidentally, under Novoseller and later Russ Kellner, to- bgether with Los Angeles, under men like Irv Rubin, Steve bSamson, and Bob Manning, became our two most militant band active chapters outside New York.

bIn Los Angeles, running battles with neo-Nazi groups bculminated in the bombing of and then the physical attack bon the National States Rights Party conference.

bThe NSRP, a long-time hate group whose attacks on Jews band Blacks are vitriolic, operates out of Marietta, Georgia, band its leader, J. B. Stoner, was the attorney for the con- bvicted killer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On June 19, b1971, a group of JDL people, led by Manning, Ed Gassman, bJan Okin, and Si Gaber, smashed into the NSRP meeting band sent a number of the Nazis to the hospital. Other Los bAngeles attacks on the American Nazi Party (now the Na- btional Socialist White Peoples Party) led to a continuing bfuror in California.

bOne of the things we had done in our efforts to obtain bwell-trained, strong, and tough Jews for effective action bagainst Jew-haters was to create a special group of fighters bwhich we named the Chaya Squad. The word chaya in He- bbrew means “beast,” and we wanted to develop Jewish b“beasts” or “animals” who would frighten the anti-Semite to bthe roots of his soul. They served an invaluable function in bthe changing of the Jewish image in America.