ADL Postpones Soviet Exhibit, Disruption Feared; Pickets Say No Disruption Intended

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith said today that it was “postponing, not cancelling” an exhibit on Soviet Jewry that was scheduled to open tonight at its headquarters here. An ADL spokesman claimed the postponement until next week was necessitated because certain groups, according to her, had announced they would disrupt the exhibit. The groups, the spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, are the Jewish Liberation Project, a Socialist-Zionist young adult organization, and the Jewish Defense League. The spokesman stated further that the ADL postponed the exhibit in order not to subject visitors to “disruption and violence,” and that the exhibit next week will be by invitation only. A spokesman for the JLP said it had not threatened either to disrupt or to indulge in any violence. “Our demonstration was called to conduct peaceful picketing outside, not inside, the building,” he stated. He told the JTA that the group welcomed the Soviet exhibit but that the ADL “is coming too late with too little,” explaining that the plight of Soviet Jewry has not been a “top priority” undertaking by the ADL.

The JLP spokesman said that the group’s scheduled demonstration was to focus on three elements: the role of the ADL in Philadelphia in identifying leaders of the JDL to the FBI; the “smearing” of grass-roots medical organizations calling for community control of hospitals and thus allegedly inciting anti-Semitism; and the “show case” nature of the “token” Soviet exhibit. The JLP spokesman said the ADL’s “informing” on the JDL constituted ” spying on Jews for the FBI,” adding: “Although we are opposed to the JDL’s right-wing politics, what is at issue here is the action of a Jewish establishment organization as an active collaborator with those who seek to suppress dissent.” The JLP statement also protested the ADL’s “defamation of radical health groups,” a reference to the ADL’s charges, dating back to January, that such groups as the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement and the (Puerto Rican) Young Lords threatened the city with “turmoil, disruption, instability and lower professional standards.” Rabbi Meir Kahane, national chairman of the JDL, told a JTA reporter that his group had no intention of participating in the demonstration. “This is strictly a JLP demonstration and we have told our members to stay away,” Rabbi Kahane said. The ADL spokesman stated: “We question the nature of any group which seeks to disrupt a bona fide exhibit on Soviet Jewry. We have fought extremists for too long to be intimidated by extremist groups now.”