298	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bThe fears that the small JDL was moving the two bsuperpowers to a crisis in relations that neither wanted and bthat threatened to undermine the years of patient efforts btoward détente were clearly becoming realities. The Oc- btober 23 edition of the New York News carried the front- bpage headline, “Moscow Boils over N.Y. Sniper, Hints at bRupture in Relations.”

bThe police, under political pressure to arrest someone, bhastily picked up 18-year-old Isaac Jaroslawicz, a JDL ac- btivist. Civil libertarian John Lindsay immediately praised bpolice for a “brilliant, swift, superb job,” and liberal Jews bcondemned the JDL and assumed that the youngster was bguilty. At his arraignment, US Attorney Robert Morse, a bJew, who was later to commit suicide, reportedly suffering bfrom psychological problems, marched into the courtroom band demanded an incredible $100,000 bail which the judge brefused to set, allowing the boy to post $25,000. As we left bthe room, I turned to Morse, whose brother had written the btragic best-seller While Six Million Died, in which he charged bthat America and the Jewish Establishment had dragged btheir feet over the extermination of Jews during World War bII, and said, “Not only don’t you help Jews, you hurt them. bYou ought to be ashamed; your brother wrote about Jews blike you.” Another JDL member interjected; “The wrong bMorse died . . .” Two months later Lindsay’s brilliant bpolice were shown to be hardly that, for Jaroslawicz was breleased and charges dropped as police admitted that he bwas not the sniper.

bOne week later, the following AP dispatch was sent from bMoscow: “Soviet authorities recently ordered medical btreatment for labor camp inmate Silva Zalmanson after bthreats by militant Jews in the United States that two Rus- bsians would be killed there if she died in the camp . . .”

bIn 1973, as I campaigned for the Knesset in Israel, I spoke bat a gathering in a private home in Kiron. During the bquestion-and-answer period, an Israeli sharply attacked me band we got into a rather angry debate. A middle-aged bwoman, who had been sitting quietly, then raised her hand band, apologizing for her inability to speak Hebrew very well, b