JDL Extremists Join Protest Against Jewish History Center
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Josh Nathan-Kazis October 20, 2017
Two people wearing insignia of the extremist group the Jewish Defense League joined a protest against the Center for Jewish History this week, according to a Facebook account of the rally.
The rally was the latest in a series of efforts by right-wing Jewish activists to force the CJH to fire its new executive director, David Myers, over his ties to liberal groups.
According to a public Facebook post by Indiana University professor Shaul Magid, who observed the protest, two people in the crowd wore shirts bearing the insignia of the Jewish Defense League.
“I kind of feel like Hunter Thompson coming back from a John Birch Society meeting,” Magid wrote.
The JDL, which was apparently defunct in the United States until this year, has a long and violent history. Its former leader, Irv Rubin, was charged in the months after September 11, 2001 with attempting to bomb Muslim targets in California. He committed suicide in prison before trial. An Israeli group founded by the JDL’s founder, Meir Kahane, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States government.
In March, JDL members clashed with protesters outside of an AIPAC conference in Washington, D.C., leaving one Palestinian-American protester bloodied.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
