236	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bwarned of the need to create an emergency aliyah cam- bpaign. I concluded by saying that German Jews, too, bthought it could not happen there. “Who is the wise man?” I bquoted from the Talmud. “He who foresees the future. The bonly solution is the aliyah of America’s Jewish millions.”

bThe following is the speech I would have given, had I bbeen allowed to address the Congress:

b“There are moments in time when history seems to pause bfor just an instant as if to give mankind a final opportunity to brealize the gravity of the time and to choose a course that will blead it away from impending catastrophe. They are mo- bments when a flash of insight and a brief passing glance into bthe impending future offer us a way that is still open to seize bour fate in our own hands and to save ourselves.

b“We stand today at such a moment with a chapter of bfuture Jewish history about to be written at a time when we bremain still masters of our own fate and survival. If we leap bforward with the courage and audacity that are called for, bfuture generations will bless our name. If, on the other bhand, we hesitate and vacillate—if we allow this last oppor- btunity to waste away—we may carry on our heads until our bdying day the knowledge that we were too blind, too timid, bor too fearful at a milestone in Jewish history that saw the bfate of millions of our brethren hang in the balance. We will bforever regret the moment of truth when we might have bachieved greatness and were found wanting.

b“We stand at a time when the critical problems facing our bpeople are called ‘Soviet Jewry’ and ‘Jews in Arab lands.’ bAnd yet I put it that there are beginning to emerge the first bchapters in what will be the most critical issue of the next bdecade—the physical survival of the largest community of bJews in the world, the Jews of the United States.

b“I realize that the thought is a staggering one. There are bthose who will simply reject it out of hand as too fantastic to beven consider happening in the democratic United States. bThere are others who will look upon it as the product of bparanoia and irrational fear. There are still others who will bcondemn it as a threat and as something that will in itself bcreate anti-Semitism. But despite all this, I repeat again: We b