The Jewish Defense League charged here today that the continued detention of its leader, Rabbi Meir Kahane, was purely political and was undertaken by Israeli authorities at the behest of the FBI. The charge was made at a press conference at which the JDL leader’s father, Rabbi Yechezkel Kahane, bitterly denounced Israeli authorities for jailing his son “two days before the Shavuot feast.”
Rabbi Meir Kahane was arrested in Jerusalem three weeks ago and remanded in custody for 15 days. Last week a magistrate’s court extended his detention for another 15 days although no specific charges were announced. Authorities hinted that Kahane was jailed because he was “attempting to cause trouble in a foreign country.”
The JDL claimed here today that “We got information that the FBI asked Israel to detain Rabbi Kahane so that he would not be free to take any action that might have embarrassed Nixon during Brezhnev’s visit” to the U.S.
Rabbi Kahane’s father asked newsmen, “Where are the protests? Nobody raises his voice against this detention which is of a political nature. Why do Jews come out in big outcries when Jews are arrested in Russia and here no one cries out when a Jew is arrested in Israel?”
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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.
