The Jewish Defense League refused to comment today on any aspect of yesterday’s firebombing of a Soviet attache’s car–even as to how it feels about anonymous persons calling news bureaus to report such incidents and using JDL slogans. The car of Michael Globenko was hit by a Molotov cocktail at 3:50 a.m. yesterday outside the Soviet staff’s bungalow in Far Rockaway. Half an hour earlier, a caller speaking in English and Hebrew announced the impending incident and used the phrases “in reprisal for the oppression of the Jews in the Soviet Union,” “Let my people go” and “Never again.” This fit the pattern set in similar incidents in recent years. The JDL has always denied involvement in the incidents, but has cheered them as complementary to its avowed policy of harassing Soviet personnel in the United States to force the Kremlin to lift its structures against Soviet Jews. The League’s chairman, Rabbi Meir Kahane, and various spokesmen have consistently denied any bombings by their personnel. Last week, Rabbi Kahane and two other JDL members were fined and handed suspended sentences and terms of probation after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to making explosives at the JDL’s Camp Jedel in Woodbourne, N.Y.
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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.
