Dr. William Perl resigned yesterday as national chairman of the Jewish Defense League. He said that “expense and the complexity of directing an organization out of Washington while most Jews live in New York makes this decision imperative.” Dr. Perl, a 67-year-old psychologist who is a professor at George Washington University, said that he will continue his JDL activities as advisor to the JDL of Greater Washington, of which his young son, Solomon, a student at the University of Maryland, is chairman.
Dr. Perl, who was born in Prague and rose to the rank of Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army during World War II, organized his own militant group in Washington in 1967 to emphasize the plight of Soviet Jews. He joined the JDL in 1970 and became its second national permanent chairman last Aug. The first chairman was Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the JDL in 1967 and moved to Israel in 1972, and is still international chairman. No successor has yet been named to Dr. Perl.
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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.
