Wherever There Is Jewish Pain

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bSure enough, as I left the plane, I was detained along with bsix other JDL members and we were held overnight before bbeing expelled from Canada. (To this day I am not allowed binto “democratic” Canada.)

bBut the major objective was achieved as the newspapers bpicked up the Silva Zalmanson story and gave her name its bfirst worldwide publicity. Thus, the New York Post’s major bheadline story was “Canada Bars Kahane While Kosy’s bThere,” and stated: “He [Kahane] hoped to gain help for bSilva Zalmanson, one of nine Soviet Jews convicted in an balleged hijacking conspiracy who has been reported ‘near bdeath’ in a Siberian prison. . . .” While Foreign Minister bAbba Eban went on the David Frost Show to tell gentiles bround the world that JDL “hinders” the cause of Jews and bhas “corrupted and degraded” the yearnings of Soviet bJewry, Jewish militants took a step that brought almost bimmediate results in the struggle to save Miss Zalmanson’s blife.

bOn the night of Wednesday, October 21, an apparently bexpert sniper standing on the roof of Hunter College, a bblock away, fired four shots neatly into a window on the beleventh floor of the Soviet Mission. No one was hurt, but bthe hysterical reaction of the Soviets was manifested in an bangry press conference by a furious—and frightened— bYakov Malik. At the United Nations, the Soviet Ambassador binterrupted the scheduled debate on the China question band set off a chain reaction of angry speeches condemning bthe JDL, Zionism, and the United States for not taking steps bto stop the attacks. A harried George Bush replied to the battacks and later almost plaintively told the press that “we bcan’t let it affect our relations with the Soviets.” He admitted bthat “the Russians feel that the Jewish Defense League rep- bresents a tremendous menace to good relations between our bcountries.” Even as Malik was speaking, JDL members were barrested for trying to take down the Soviet flag at the United bNations, while others got into the Soviet Mission, threw bpaint over a Soviet diplomat—this was later to be embel- blished when a young JDL member in Washington spilled bblood over a Soviet diplomat speaking at a local buniversity—and smashed the glass doors and furniture.