The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, George Bush, denounced the chairman of the Jewish Defense League, Rabbi Meir Kahane, to his face today in the lobby of the US Mission. While 50 JDL members picketed the Mission demanding American intervention toward the release of Soviet Jewish prisoner Sylva Zalmanson Kuznetsov, Rabbi Kahane entered the Mission in an attempt to speak personally with Bush.
Shortly, the envoy descended to the lobby on his way out of the Mission, and on being confronted by the rabbi, condemned the tactics of the JDL as harmful to Soviet Jews and Soviet-American relations and walked past the rabbi out of the building. Bush is aware of the case of Mrs. Zalmanson, the wife of another Soviet Jewish prisoner. Edvard Kuznetsov. She is reportedly very ill in the Potma prison in Soviet Mordovia, where she has eight years and eight months remaining on a 10-year sentence for alleged complicity in an alleged hijacking plot.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.