Founded by right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1968, the JDL started out as a neighborhood patrol group that protected Brooklyn merchants and Hasidic Jews from a surge of anti-Semitic threats, robberies, and assaults.
The JDL soon broadened its goals, according to the FBI, to include intimidating anti-Semitic enemies of Israel; harassing the Soviet Union and its satellites because of their anti-Semitic policies; and expelling all Arabs from Israel. The JDL symbol was a clenched fist inside a Star of David. Its slogan: “Every Jew a 22.”
The FBI believed that the JDL was a loosely organized paramilitary group of more than six thousand young Jews covertly trained in terrorist tactics at Camp Jedel in Sullivan County, New York. The bureau also believed that Jedel JDL recruits received instruction in karate, rifle and pistol marksmanship, and the making and planting of bombs.
Rabbi Kahane didn’t try to hide JDL’s objectives. “If we see guns being used openly by certain groups,” he said, “we will tell the police, ‘either you people stop it, or we will have to use them also.’”
In 1974, the year Elizabeth Holtzman first read the INS files in New York, Kahane left Brooklyn for Jerusalem, where he formed the Kach Party, a militant, anti-Arab group of terrorists. Hundreds of young JDL Jews from the United States followed him. The FBI believed that Kahane continued to direct violent American JDL cells from Israel.
After the 1977 publication of Blum’s book, the JDL added a new goal, according to the FBI—exposing and harassing Nazi collaborators. The bureau was so concerned about potential violence that it notified each alleged Nazi collaborator on OSI’s active investigation list about the package bombs. It asked them to report to local bureau offices any suspicious or threatening activity, from heavy-breathing phone calls in the middle of the night to hate mail, death threats, and assaults.
Six months after the five parcel bombs were mailed from New York, OSI filed charges against Soobzokov for lying on his visa application about his wartime activities. OSI was forced to drop the charges, however, when the CIA furnished a document showing that Soobzokov had disclosed his membership in the Waffen SS during his visa application interview. Although voluntary membership in the Waffen SS made an applicant automatically ineligible for a U.S. visa, the CIA had managed to get Soobzokov into the country with the understanding that he would spy on the Circassian community for the agency and the FBI.
With the 1979 dismissal of criminal charges by a federal grand jury and immigration fraud charges by OSI, Soobzokov became a target. Violence against him and other alleged enemies of Israel began to escalate across the country:
• JDL members regularly picketed Soobzokov’s home, carrying signs that read: “Death to Soobzokov—JDL… Nazi Murderers Have No Rights.” Members of the local Circassian community pelted the demonstrators with stones under the watchful eyes of the Paterson police.
• Soobzokov received anonymous threatening letters. “Soobzokov—you are a Nazi butcher of men, women and infants,” one said. “You will die and when you are dead, you will eternally suffer for the crimes you have committed.” The handwritten letter was signed, “A child of a survivor.” Another letter read: “Unless you drop your court suits, we will kidnap your [three] children one by one. Then we will assassinate you, you pig…. Okay?”
• The FBI received a warning letter: “What happened [package bombs] is nothing like what is going to happen. And although we’re sure every Nazi headquarters is being watched, we possess now the membership records of every Nazi group in the country. Every Nazi is a target. The only rights Nazis have is
• A twenty-year-old member of the JDL infiltrated Nazi and white supremacy groups in New Jersey and Delaware. She supplied the JDL with membership lists—names, addresses, telephone numbers, photos, places of work—as well as organization plans. But she got caught. The head of the New Jersey KKK and a leader in the Delaware National Socialist Liberation Front lured her to a motel in Vineland, New Jersey, on the pretext of holding a meeting. They cuffed her hands behind her back and repeatedly raped her as punishment. In the process, they broke her right wrist.
• The house of a Forest Hills, Queens, businessman who sold Nazi books and paraphernalia was firebombed with a Molotov cocktail.
• A man representing himself as a reporter stabbed a guest in the home of Boleslavs Maikovskis in Mineola, Long Island, then fled. The assailant later identified himself to the media as a member of Jewish Executioners With Silence (JEWS). He said that Maikovskis had been his target. After that incident, vigilantes lobbed Molotov cocktails at Maikovskis’s house several times. A year earlier, in 1978, several shots had been fired into his home, seriously injuring him.
• In the Venice section of Los Angeles, a vigilante planted a bomb at the Fox Theatre, which was featuring a series of Russian films. The bomb was discovered and no one was injured.
• Three months before the Soobzokov bombing, a pipe bomb exploded at the front door of George Ashley’s home in Los Angeles. Ashley, a nationally known Holocaust denier, was sleeping at the time and no one was injured. The letters “JDL” were spray-painted in dark blue on the walkway leading to his house. The JDL denied responsibility for the bombing.
• A week before the Soobzokov bombing, twenty-five young Jews gathered in a Paterson area synagogue to hear Mordechai Levi speak. Levi was the leader of the Jewish Defense Organization, a radical JDL splinter group. During his high-octane speech, Levi singled out Soobzokov as an enemy of Israel. “One doesn’t ignore Nazis,” he railed. “One doesn’t debate Nazis. One destroys Nazis.”
• Two days before the Soobzokov bombing, a tan station wagon tried to run him over as he crossed a street near his home.
• The day after the Soobzokov bombing, a Boston police officer was disarming a twelve-inch pipe bomb discovered in front of the building that housed the Massachusetts chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The bomb accidentally detonated. Two officers were injured.
• A week after the Soobzokov bombing, a Paterson police officer working on the case received an anonymous letter. “You better not mix up in our case into Mr. Soobzokov,” the handwritten note said. “You are a Nazi…. We will get you.”
• A few days later, the Passaic County sheriff received an anonymous, typewritten letter. “You are barking up the wrong tree in the Soobzokov case,” it said. “One of his own committed this crime. Many of his friends hated him with a passion. Others were deeply jealous of him. As having Circassian-Jordan (ARAB) background, these people may relegate
A week after the Paterson bombing, doctors gave the police permission to interview Soobzokov if they promised to ask only yes-and-no questions. Soobzokov had agreed to answer with a nod of his head.
Did you see or hear anything during the night prior to the explosion, investigators asked.
Yes, Soobzokov nodded.
Was the JDL responsible for the bombing?
Yes!
Do you know who was directly responsible for placing the bomb at your doorstep?
Yes!
Do you have any additional information for us?
Yes!
Before he was strong enough to actually speak to the police, Soobzokov died of a massive heart attack. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. The violence didn’t stop with the last beat of Soobzokov’s heart.
At 4:30 A.M. on September 6, 1985, a man walking down a street in Brentwood, Long Island, saw flames leaping up the right side of the home of Elmars Sprogis. The passerby ran to the front door to warn the family.
Sprogis was a seventy-year-old former Latvian policeman accused of arresting Jews, transporting them to killing sites, guarding them until they were shot, and then looting their homes. OSI had filed immigration fraud charges against him but couldn’t make them stick because all eyewitnesses were dead. A federal judge found Sprogis not guilty of lying on his visa application, and dropped the charges.
