The National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council denounced today the anti-Jewish and anti-American attacks by Soviet and Arab delegates in the United Nations last week. It condemned at the same time the sniper attack on the Soviet UN Mission in New York which it said was the “springboard” for the outbursts by the Soviet Ambassador to the UN Yakov Malik, and Jamil M. Baroody of Saudi Arabia. Albert E. Arent, NCRAC chairman said the remarks by the Soviet and Arabian delegates were “vicious” and “cynical.” He said he hoped that “All Americans will join us in condemning the naked anti-Semitism revealed in the Soviet-Arab UN tirade, as well as in denouncing violence and urging the punishment of the individual proved guilty of firing on the Soviet Mission.”
Speaking in the General Assembly last Thursday, Malik accused US authorities of failure to prevent a systematic campaign by “Zionists” and other “hostile elements” against the Soviet Union. He attributed the sniper incident to the “Fascist-Zionist group” headed by Rabbi Meir Kahane, chairman of the Jewish Defense League. Baroody leveled his attack on Mayor John V. Lindsay who he said “goes to synagogue and acts like a rabbi to obtain Jewish votes.” The NCRAC, a coordinating body of nine major national Jewish organizations and 91 local Jewish councils, assailed the “encouragement” given to the person who allegedly fired into the Soviet Mission “by those who would covertly condone violence while publicly attempting to dissociate themselves from it.” The reference was obviously to the JDL though the NCRAC statement mentioned no names.
Yosef Tekoah, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, condemned the sniper attack against the Soviet Mission but equally condemned Malik for using the incident as a “pretext to attack a people and a religion.” Answering the Soviet envoy in the General Assembly. Tekoah said Malik’s statements were reminiscent of the “Protocols of Zion” and echoed well-known Stalinist ideology. He recalled that it was the Soviet Union that signed a treaty with Nazi Germany in 1939 not Zionism or the Jewish people. Tekoah added that in Israel there were several monuments to the Red Army but that at Babi Yar, where 90,000 Jews were massacred by the Nazis, there was still no monument to the martyrs.
Isaac M. Jaroslawicz, a JDL member released Friday on $25,000 ball, is charged with having illegally obtained the rifle said to have been used in the shooting but has not been accused of firing it. A hearing is scheduled Nov. 10. The gun was found in an air shaft in Hunter College, near the apartment building that houses the Soviet Mission. The sniper was believed to have fired from the roof. Jaroslawicz, 18, was described as a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University. He could face a five year prison term and $5,000 fine if convicted. Federal District Attorney Robert A. Morse said Jaroslawicz was found guilty Sept. 13 of criminal trespass in an incident at the office of the New York Board of Rabbis.
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