Kahane Terms Conference Platitudinous; Won’t Name Those Who Urged His Expulsion

Rabbi Meir Kahane, national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, today predicted that the world conference on Soviet Jewry, from which he was ousted yesterday, would achieve nothing concrete, end only “with platitudes,” and assailed those people who “argue for dissent in the Soviet Union, but won’t tolerate dissent among their own people.” Arriving at Kennedy Airport this morning from London, the JDL leader told newsmen that yesterday could be marked as “a day of shame for all Jews,” and that the Jewish leaders presiding at the conference had committed “an act of disgrace by turning over a Jew” to the Belgian authorities. Rabbi Kahane also charged that it was the Jewish leadership in Brussels which had “pressured the government” to expel him, and that a top Belgian official had disclosed to him that his government had been requested to classify him as an “undesirable.” He told newsmen that he knew the names of those Jews who had urged the action, but declined to name them.

Rabbi Kahane said he had sought to present to the conference a 10-point program of action for Soviet Jewry which, he said, “calls for non-violent civil disobedience during the little time Soviet Jews have left.” Asked by newsmen to elaborate on this pessimistic note, Rabbi Kahane asserted that the Kremlin “might change hands” within the next year or two, and that he felt the new regime would be emphatically more anti-Semitic and employ “physical abuse” against the Jews. He added that the program would be initiated with a mass rally March 21 in Washington. He maintained that yesterday’s events had angered hundreds of conference delegates who had wanted to “hear his side.” Rabbi Kahane declared that “only through dialogue can people see who is right on an issue.” All the major Jewish organizations have refused to sit down and talk with us. This is not democratic nor was there democracy in Belgium yesterday.” At the close of the news conference, Rabbi Kahane said, with a wry grin, that he still intended to emigrate to Israel “after all the courts try me, find me innocent and free me.”