bnot have the moral decency to fight for them, what business
bis it of yours when someone else does?
bIf one should ask this, the answer should be clearly under-
bstood. When I sat in Jerusalem’s Central Prison for a month,
bI wrote the answer with the intention of reading it at my
btrial. Here is what I wrote on that June day as the Jewish
bState placed me in isolation and prepared to put me in jail to
bappease Richard Nixon:
THE CHOSEN STATE
b“Jerusalem Central Prison. The question is not often
basked because the subject is not often discussed—it is too
bpainful. But among those who do delve into the painful his-
btory of Jewish inaction and passivity while six million of their
bbrothers and sisters perished before their eyes in the
bHolocaust, the question remains a growing and puzzling
bone. Why? Why did not the Jews of the Free World rise up
band do what had to be done to shake the world into action?
bSurely the Jewish leadership was not composed of wicked
bpeople whose hearts were stony and indifferent to the fate
bof slaughtered kinsmen. Surely the Jews of the Free World,
bof the United States—where the activities would have been
bmost effective—were good Jews whose hearts ached for
btheir people. And if so, why the silence; why the refusal to
bleap into the necessary action and acts that would have saved
bhundreds of thousands?
b“The answer is that, of course, Jews of the United States
bcared for their people in Europe; of course, they desired to
bsave them. But they cared for themselves more, they feared
bfor their own interests first. They looked to their own safety
band position as being more important than anything else.
b‘Adam karov l’atzmo,’ say the rabbis, ‘man is near unto him-
bself; he is possessed by self-interest.’
b“And so he does not risk himself or his interest, even at the
bexpense of the bleeding fellow Jew. The commandment of
bAhavat Yisroel, love of Jews, as expressed in the stern bibli-
bcal admonition, ‘Thou shalt not stand idly by thy brother’s
bblood,’ becomes a terribly difficult one when one is called
bupon to put it into action. Far easier to leave it in the House
b