Kahane Found Guilty on Two Charges, Not Guilty on Third, Going to World Conference

Rabbi Meir Kahane, national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, was today found guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court on two charges: obstruction of governmental operations and of disorderly conduct, and was found not guilty on a third charge of resisting arrest. Sentence will be handed down April 13. The guilty verdict will be appealed. The changes stemmed from a demonstration before the Soviet Mission on Dec. 3, 1969, in which Rabbi Kahane and 28 other members of the JDL were arrested. Late this afternoon, Rabbi Kahane left for John F. Kennedy International Airport from which he was scheduled to fly to Brussels in an effort to attend the World Conference on Soviet Jewry. Yesterday, JDL members staged a three-hour sit-in at the offices of the New York Board of Rabbis to protest what a JDL spokesman termed the Board’s failure to provide bail money for Avraham Hershkovits, who has been in prison for five months “because there is no bail money,” Lawrence Fine, JDL executive director, said. The JDL also demanded that the Board of Rabbis, which maintains a Chaplaincy Division, provide Hershkovits, a vegetarian, with more substantial kosher daily meals. “All that has been provided by the Chaplain has been some cheese and crackers,” Fine complained.