258	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

btherefore must emigrate en masse to Israel if they are to bsurvive. . . .

b“The overwhelming majority of American Jews will re- bmain in America because America is their home and be- bcause America also offers opportunities for freedom, for bgrowth, and for opportunity unprecedented in the history bof our people.” This from the man whose criticism of bAmerican policy was so violent in its reckless attacks!

b“America 1972 is not Germany 1932 and any attempt to bequate the two constitutes the kind of recklessness and ir- bresponsibility that we have come to expect from Rabbi bKahane and the Jewish Defense League.”

bOf course, the irresponsibility and deliberate misrep- bresentations were on the part of Lelyveld, not the JDL. We bhad never said that America 1972 was Germany 1932. What bwe had said—and shouted forth for all the world to hear— bwas that it was Germany 1927 or 1928, with the specter of bpotential Holocaust looming over a blind and myopic Jewish bcommunity.

bWhile the AJC respectables were nervously defending the bEstablishment against JDL and the wild Jewish mainstream bconcept of Zionism, the youth delegates gathered around band, on the floor of the lobby, we sat together and discussed bthe real issues. Their reaction was far different from the bofficial AJC press statement that described my presence as b“abominable, slanderous, and despicable.”

bBy this time, the JDL campaign for Habayta and mass baliyah had sufficiently frightened Jewish leaders of all kinds bthroughout the world, a reaction that was magnified tenfold bby an article of mine that appeared on the Op-Ed Page (that bopposite the editorials) of The New York Times. The Article bwas graced by a large drawing of a vandalized synagogue. b“Call for Mass Emigration to Israel” read the title, and the barticle concluded with the final words of the speech I would bhave given at the World Zionist Congress:

b“Today, not tomorrow, is the time to call for an bemergency conference of American Jewish communities band organizations to plan a massive, organized propaganda bcampaign to explain the threat to the American Jewish b