56	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bour gallant brethren,” bringing Newsweek to admit “the bblandness of the document.”

bFor me, the conference had been over a day before when bthree members of the Sûreté ushered me into an automobile band drove me from the Sûreté building through the streets bof Brussels and into the back entrance of the airport. Pulling bup at a British European Airways plane, we were surround- bed by reporters and cameramen. For a few seconds a bshoving match developed between the press and the police. bThen it was all over. I was on the plane and headed for bLondon. For me—and for Soviet Jewry—the Brussels Con- bference was over. It began in predictable style with praise of bthe Soviet army by Rabbi Schacter. It ended with praise of bthe Soviet Jews. Neither the Red Army or Soviet Jews ben- befited much from the Conference words.

bI went to Brussels because, for the Jews of the Soviet bUnion, there was so little time left. What occurred in Brus- bsels was not a defeat for Meir Kahane or the Jewish Defense bLeague, but for Soviet Jews—who had and have so little btime.

bSeven hundred and fifty Jewish leaders were gathered bfrom the four corners of the earth and brought to Belgium. bThey were flown thousands of miles at great Jewish ex- bpense. At long last, after all the silent years and all the bwasted and neglected opportunities, a conference was called bat a time of crisis, at a moment in history when time is brunning out for the Jews of Silence. How great was the bopportunity and how much greater the disappointment! bWe did not need a vital conference that met in greatness and bemerged with less than nothing.

bI went to Brussels because I feared that the conference bwould content itself with platitudes. It did. I went to Brus- bsels because I sensed that concrete programs would not even bbe on the agenda. They were not. I went to Brussels because, bif playwrights and producers and authors and architects bwho have had little or no share in the struggle for Soviet bJewry were allowed hallowed entry, representatives of an borganization that has literally spilled its blood on barricades b