262	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bJuly, after my return to Israel, when the Zionist Organiza- btion of America held its seventy-fifth anniversary conven- btion in Jerusalem. We took the occasion to take out an badvertisement in the Jerusalem Post despite our deep distaste bfor the paper’s almost pathological antireligious and bgovernment-puppet line. In the ad we stated, in part:

b“Is there a Zionist who does not recognize that the United bStates with all its past goodness to us is also Galut-Exile and bthat there were other ‘golden exiles’ in the past that turned binto horrors for Jews. . . ? What are we doing sitting in the bfleshpots of America? What are you as Zionists doing about bimmediate plans for permanent aliyah? We ask you to join bthe emergency aliyah group known as Habayta. . . .”

bIn particular, we turned to the delegates from the ZOA byouth movement, Madada, to join in this campaign. I then bcontacted Jacques Torczyner, one of the more astute and bfarsighted Zionist leaders in America, and asked him to help bme to get permission to address the convention. I did not banticipate a refusal, since the ZOA had broken the prece- bdent of every other major Jewish organization by allowing bme in September 1971 to address their convention at bPittsburgh, where I had spoken on the same theme and breceived a tremendous ovation. I was not mistaken; the bZOA did agree to allow me to speak. I appeared before a bpacked hall of delegates on Sunday, July 16. At the previous bnight’s session Rabbi Max Nussbaum had assailed “the bdoom preachers of the Radical Right [sic] in Israel and the bUnited States who contend that immigration from the bUnited States should be predicated on a fear of anti-Semit- bism.” It should be noted that Nussbaum, a Reform Rabbi band former ZOA President, was the rabbi of a wealthy bHollywood temple, whose chief, in fact, only, dubious bclaim to fame was his conversion to Hollywood “Juda- bism” of movie stars such as Elizabeth Taylor.

bThe Israeli press, gave top billing to my appearance, balthough until then the convention had been buried and balmost unknown to the average Israeli. Noah Klieger of bYediot Aharonot in a long article covered my speech in detail, bstating: “Rabbi Kahane’s words—despite the fact that not all b