Rabbi Meir Kahane, national chairman of the self-styled Jewish Defense League, has been denounced by the weekly Jewish newspaper he formerly edited. Rabbi Sholom Klass, publisher of the Jewish Press, an Orthodox-oriented tabloid published in Brooklyn, today dissociated the paper from Rabbi Kahane and other leaders of the JDL. He accused Rabbi Kahane of making the JDL a “personal political club” and waging “a campaign of vilification” against Mayor John V. Lindsay. According to Rabbi Klass, Rabbi Kahane was asked to resign as editor of the Jewish Press because he gave more time to JDL affairs than to his duties on the paper.
Under Rabbi Kahane’s editorship, the Jewish Press published bitter attacks against Mayor Lindsay. Rabbi Kahane has continued these attacks in paid advertisements by the JDL in the New York Times accusing the Mayor of responsibility for an alleged “wave of terror” against Jews in ghetto communities and tolerance of Black anti-Semitism.
Rabbi Klass claimed today that his paper “felt duty-bound to present all sides in the Mayoralty campaign.” While the Jewish Press has endorsed no candidate, Rabbi Klass expressed satisfaction with a program outlined by Mayor Lindsay for aid to yeshivas and Talmud Torahs in poor neighborhoods. The Jewish Defense League has been denounced by most major Jewish organizations in the city for “rabble rousing” and vigilante tactics.
A spokesman for the newspaper said it would publish an announcement of its views on page one of this week’s issue. He said that originally the newspaper gave extensive coverage to the JDL because it felt that the organization’s “aims and purposes were good.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
