Four members of the Jewish Defense League were arrested Thursday night for disrupting a reception at the Soviet Embassy in honor of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union. According to JDL leader Dr. William Perl, a fifth demonstrator slipped out during the melee.
Dr. Perl and another JDL member, Denise Leish, a 20-year-old student at the University of Maryland, chained themselves to a five-foot high metal ornamental candlestick in a dining room on the second floor of the Embassy. They shouted “free Soviet Jews,” and “no ransom, no slave trade,” and showered leaflets into the room. They continued shouting as Russian plainclothesmen hauled them downstairs and turned them over to the Executive Protective Service.
Dr. Perl and Miss Leish gained entrance to the Embassy by arriving in a chauffer-driven limousine and using false invitations. A half hour after their arrival, three JDL youths arrived in another chauffer-driven limousine and slipped through a tightened security network into the ground floor of the Embassy, tossing leaflets and yelling anti-Soviet slogans. Fighting immediately broke out and kicks and punches continued to be exchanged as the souffle spilled out onto the sidewalk, Dr. Perl said. The four JDLers taken into custody were released after paying $10 bond each.
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.
