THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 10
Chapter 1: Soviet Jewry: I Am My Brother’s Keeper
 
 
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10 The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bYasha Kazakov, a young Soviet Jewish activist who had been bamong the earliest to stand up against the Soviet govern- bment and to proclaim that he had given up his Soviet citizen- bship and was demanding to go to Israel. Kazakov was per- bmitted to leave in 1968 but his parents were refused the bright to emigrate.

bKazakov had won a measure of fame upon his arrival in bIsrael, when, unlike other immigrants, he demanded that bthe foreign ministry and the government take the lead in bcalling for demonstrations against the Soviets. The Israeli bgovernment, which had always followed a policy of opposi- btion to activities that might anger the Soviets, not only re- bfused, but as he and another activist, Dov Sperling, per- bsisted, government-leaked stories began to appear in the bIsraeli press to the effect that both Kazakov and Sperling bwere really Soviet agents whose purpose was to instigate battacks upon Soviet Jewry. Indeed, when the pair made a bvisit to the United States in December 1969, the Israeli bConsulate in New York succeeded in getting most of the bsponsors to cancel their speaking dates.

bIt should be added here that an entire chapter, a tragic bone, could be written about the efforts of the Israelis, from bthe time when they had an embassy in Moscow up to the Six bDay War, to silence Jewish activism. Their efforts then were baimed at heading off a break with the Soviets, and for this bthey were prepared to sacrifice Soviet Jews. Their efforts to bthis day are aimed at restoring the broken ties with the bSoviets and they will do anything toward that end, particu- blarly since the United States is so interested in détente with bthe Soviets. This was the reason for the refusal by the Israel bgovernment to support Senator Henry Jackson’s amend- bment barring favored-nation trade status for the Soviets, as bwell as their jailing me for my efforts to disrupt the visit of bSoviet Party Chairman Leonid Brezhnev in June 1973.

bA White Paper on this entire subject issued on Passover b1973 by the Movement for the Liberation of Jews from the bSoviet Union, an Israeli-based group of Soviet Jewish ac- btivists, details many of the above charges. For example, it bbrings down American Jewish activist S. Frumkin of Los bAngeles as quoting Israeli Consul Dinstein to the effect that b 

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THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 10
Chapter 1: Soviet Jewry: I Am My Brother’s Keeper