Students in Los Angeles Form Activist Unit, Oppose Anti-zionist Radicalism

Four students at Los Angeles City College and California State College of Los Angeles have announced formation of “Concerned Jewish Youth” as an activist force in the interest of the Jewish community but rejecting any affiliation with the organized Jewish community. An announcement of the organization’s establishment said its immediate objective was “the building up of Jewish pride and a Jewish identity, based on our culture, history and heritage which are rooted in Israel and the diaspora.” The announcement expressed concern that “many efforts of Jewish youth have been misspent on movements which will in the end be directed against us as Jews.”

In its first public declaration, the organization criticized young Jews who support radical movements that condemn Israel as “imperialistic and genocidal” and encourage Israel’s enemies. It said it was “hard to understand how Jews can still support radical movements and not raise their voices against anti-Zionist (really synonymous with anti-Jewish) statements as came out of the National Conference for New Politics.” It asked how Jews could “support a movement that demands as one of its goals ethnic quota systems in all the institutions of American society.” The declaration asserts that “the Jewish radical should show that he is in a middle position and that he is being used. Anti-Semitism has been used in countless societies in which there has been social change and upheaval and revolution.”