Ajcommittee, Ajcongress Express Satisfaction with Jdl’s Moratorium on Harassment

Two major Jewish organizations expressed satisfaction today with Rabbi Meir Kahane’s promise of a moratorium on the harassment of Soviet officials by the Jewish Defense League. Philip E. Hoffman, president of the American Jewish Committee said, “While we share the League’s concern for three million Jews in the Soviet Union, we have consistently deplored its illegal methods of expressing this concern.” Hoffman said that he assumed Kahane was referring to the AJCommittee as well as other Jewish organizations when he said the moratorium was called at the request of Jewish leaders. “We and all major Jewish organizations have expressed keen dismay with his tactics,” Hoffman added. Rabbi Kahane announced the moratorium yesterday after he and seven other JDL members were indicted by a New York Country Grand Jury on various charges of harassment and disorderly conduct. But he threatened that “if we don’t see any results, we’ll go back to our harassing.” Will Maslow, executive director of the American Jewish Congress said, “It would be gratifying to think that Rabbi Kahane now concedes that bombing Soviet offices and calling Russian housewives dirty names as they shop in the supermarkets will not change the Kremlin’s policy toward Soviet Jewry.” Maslow asserted that “only an aroused world conscience can do that–and only if our actions are both militant and non-violent will we continue to win sympathy and support for the courageous Jews of the Soviet Union.”