60	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

btee, and the various philanthropic federations that raised band doled out the money to the poor hordes of East Euro- bpean Jews who poured in from Russia, Poland, and Galicia. bTerrified, the respectable now-American Jews of the Upper bEast Side now hastened to its lower depths with funds that bwere aimed, above all, at Americanizing the uncivilized and bbackward poor cousins and remaking them in their own bimage.

bThe American Jew was fruitful and multiplied and for bthe most part was very, very successful. His leaders never bwavered in their determination to be good Americans of bMosaic persuasion, and, to this end, did everything possible bto melt. No one believed in the melting pot more than the bAmerican Jewish leadership, and no one fought for its suc- bcess as hard as they. The public school was glorified and the bJewish day school, the yeshiva, denigrated. Loud and costly bbattles were fought so that the Jew might be allowed to enter bthe gentile hotel and share his nonkosher food with him beven as other court battles were fought to allow the Jew to bshare the gentile country club so that his son would eventu- bally marry a daughter of the noncovenant.

bThe Jew succeeded. His son melted and slowly began to bdissolve and by 1968 we were able to see an American Jewish bcommunity with six million of its members dotting the bAmerican landscape, so that any impartial observer could bfairly say that:

b1.aNever in the history of the Jewish people had there bbeen a community so large in numbers and so affluent in bwealth and property while at the same time so frighteningly binsecure, apprehensive, confused, and disoriented, while bsuffering from a critical national amnesia that found it bgroping for an answer to the questions: Who am I? Why am bI?

b2.aNever in the history of the Jewish people had a com- bmunity so large in numbers been cursed with a leadership so btiny in talent, so ignorant of Judaism, so lacking in courage band imagination, so fearful of making a controversial deci- bsion, and which had presided so mutely over and in most b