THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 185
Chapter 6: Jewish Power: Is It Good for Jews?
 
 
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Jewish Power 185

bGovernment favored a strong U.S. stance in Vietnam, and bthis was certainly true. Probably one of the most telling bcontradictions between what was good for liberalism and bwhat was good for Jews was revealed at the American Jewish bCongress convention in Cleveland in May 1972, when Is- braeli Vice Premier Yigal Allon addressed the conclave and bvigorously defended Nixon’s Vietnam Policy while the con- bvention was voting bitter censure of the President for min- bing Haiphong Harbor.

bThere is little question that our stand on Vietnam hurt us bon the campuses. The fact that we did not compromise and bback away was the secret of JDL’s difference and greatness. bWhen faced with a situation in which a particular position bwas good for Jews and bad for JDL, we never hesitated. bJewish good always came first, and in the case of Vietnam we bknew that a strong U.S. foreign policy was vital and good for bIsrael despite the fact that our declarations to that effect bhurt JDL in its recruiting drive. I attempted again and again bto convince our members never to back away from principle bfor the sake of short-range gain and that, in the long run, bthe truth you said while being pelted with stones would be bremembered and you would emerge the stronger for it. The bAmerican Jewish Congress and the Reform Jewish move- bment could proclaim such asininities as a “Sabbath for peace bto stop the unwanted war in Indochina” (November 6, b1971), and Boston rabbis who never dreamed of doing the bsame for Soviet Jews could get arrested for sitting in the bstreets to protest Nixon’s Vietnam policy, while all kinds of bschizophrenic Reform and Conservative rabbis could call bfor a fast in September 1972 over the Asian war. JDL never bwavered from its commitment to Jews and what was vital for bJewish interests. That alone would have marked it as a bmajor and revolutionary difference in Jewish life even had it bdone nothing else to warrant the label.

bIs-it-good-for Jews also brought us into the eye of a public bopinion hurricane when we publicly accepted the help of bJoseph Colombo, Sr., and his Italian-American Civil Rights bAssociation. The respectable Jewish groups howled in self- brightous indignation, the vast majority of Jews were deeply b 

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THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 185
Chapter 6: Jewish Power: Is It Good for Jews?