The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a far-right political organization in the United States, Canada and France. Its stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"; it was described as a "right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2001, and is also designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to the FBI, the JDL has been involved in plotting and executing acts of terrorism within the United States. Most terrorist watch groups classify the group as inactive as of 2015.
Founded by Meir Kahane in New York City in 1968, the JDL's self-described purpose was to protect Jews from local manifestations of antisemitism. Its criticism of the Soviet Union increased local support for the group, transforming it from a "vigilante club" into an organization with a stated membership numbering over 15,000 at one point. The group took to bombing Arab and Soviet properties in the United StatesHewitt, p. 65 while assassinating a variety of alleged "enemies of the Jewish people" ranging from Arab-American political activists to neo-Nazis.Nasseph McCarus, Ernest. The Development of Arab-American Identity. 1994, pp. 180–3 A number of JDL members have been linked to violent, and sometimes deadly, attacks in the United States and in other countries, including the murder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee regional director Alex Odeh in 1985; the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in 1994; a plot to assassinate U.S. representative Darrell Issa in 2001;Kushner, Harvey W. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. 2003, pp. 192–3 and a plot to bomb the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California. In 1990, Kahane was assassinated by an Egyptian-American gunman, El Sayyid Nosair, at a hotel in New York City.
Mainstream Jewish organizations have rejected the JDL since its founding,Kaufman, Michael T. Jewish Activists See Ranks Growing. The New York Times. May 25, 1970. with the Anti-Defamation League stating that it consists only of "thugs and hooligans."Bohn, Michael K. The Achille Lauro Hijacking. 2004, pp. 176–7
History 1968: Events leading to the first demonstration In 1968, while Meir Kahane was serving as associate editor of The Jewish Press, the paper's office began receiving calls and letters reporting crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions. Violence in the New York City area was on the rise, with Jews accounting for a disproportionately share of the victims. Elderly Jews were harassed and mugged, storeowners were robbed, and Jewish teachers were assaulted, while Jewish synagogues were defaced and Jewish cemeteries desecrated.
After discussing the matter with several congregants, Kahane placed an ad in The Jewish Press on May 24, 1968, which read: "We are talking of JEWISH SURVIVAL! Are you willing to stand up for democracy and Jewish survival? Join and support the Jewish Defense Corps." Shortly after, Kahane renamed the group the "Jewish Defense League," out of concern that the word "Corps" would be construed as too militant. The group's declared purpose was "to combat anti-Semitism in the public and private sectors of life in the United States of America."JDL Certificate of Incorporation, approved September 25, 1968 Kahane said that the JDL was formed to "do the job that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) should do but doesn't."
Shortly afterward, the JDL published a four-page manifesto. It stated: "America has been good to the Jew and the Jew has been good to America" described the U.S. as a country founded on democracy and freedom that had provided unprecedented opportunities to Jews, while warning that it was threatened by "political extremism" and "racist militancy." The manifesto also stated that the organization rejected hate and illegality, supported law and order and police, and would use the courts to challenge discrimination.Meir Kahane, "Jewish Defense League Manifesto". New York, 1969 When asked about JDL members breaking the law, Kahane responded, "We respect the right and the obligation of the American government to prosecute us and send us to jail. No one gripes about that."
The group adopted the slogan "Never again!", which had been used by Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto. The phrase is commonly understood as a declaration that a genocide against Jews on the scale of the Holocaust must never be allowed to recur. Kahane said, however, that his use of the slogan was intended to emphasize that Jews should never again be caught off guard or lulled into placing foolish trust in others.
The first JDL demonstration took place on August 5, 1968, at New York University, where about 15 members chanted, "No Nazis at NYU, Jewish rights are precious too."
1969: Operations in the New York and Boston regions On August 7, the JDL sent members to Passaic, New Jersey, to protect Jewish merchants from anti-Jewish rioting that had swept the area for days. On November 25, the JDL was invited to the Boston area by Jewish residents in response to a mounting wave of crime directed primarily against Jews. On December 3, JDL members attacked the Syrian Mission in New York City.
On December 31, 13 JDL members were arrested after a series of coordinated actions against Soviet property in Manhattan and at Kennedy Airport intended to protest the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union. Several youths painted slogans on a Soviet airliner, and two of them handcuffed themselves to the airliner while others daubed the words "Am Yisroel Chai" () on the plane's doors. A similar slogan was painted on the walls of the office of TASS, the Soviet news agency, in Rockefeller Plaza, which was invaded by Kahane and four other JDL members. The rest of the demonstrators were taken into custody after invading the midtown offices of the Soviet tourist bureau.
In 1969 the JDL was targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program, which attempted to provoke it to attack the Black Panther Party.Glick, B. (1989). War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and what We Can Do about it. United States: South End Press. Page 60.Ackerman, Spencer. The Time The FBI Tried To Get Meir Kahane's Jewish Fascists To Murder Black Panthers. 12 December 2025.
1970: Demonstrations and an airplane hijack attempt January–March 1970 Initially, the League was connected to a series of violent attacks against the Soviet Union's interests in the United States, protesting the repression of Soviet Jews, who were often jailed and refused exit visas.Harvey W. Kushner, Encyclopedia of Terrorism , SAGE, 2003, 192–193. The JDL decided that violence was necessary to draw attention to their plight, reasoning that Moscow would respond to the strain on Soviet Union–United States relations by allowing more emigration to Israel.
In 1970, according to Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, agents of the Soviet KGB forged and sent threatening letters to Arab diplomatic missions claiming to be from the JDL to discredit it. They were also ordered to bomb a target in the "Negro section of New York" and blame it on the JDL.Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books, 2005, 237–238 On January 25, JDL members staged anti-Soviet demonstrations at a concert of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in Brooklyn College's auditorium. JDL members "danced, sang and yelled" while trying to prevent people from entering the auditorium.
On March 23, JDL members staged a sit-in in the office of the president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York to demand that the Federation allocate more funds for Jewish education and Jewish defense, assist institutions threatened by violence, and arrange for "popular" election of Federation officials. As a result, the Federation agreed to form a special committee to consider the request for additional funds for Jewish education, while other groups continued to demonstrate.
April–June 1970 On April 7, the JDL held memorial services on behalf of civilian victims of "Arab terrorism during the past half century" in front of the United Arab Republic Mission to the United Nations.
On April 9, nine JDL members occupied the principal's office of Leeds Junior High School in Philadelphia after school authorities had allegedly failed to crack down on school violence. The JDL hoped to present six "suggestions" for protecting students from assault and theft by "troublemakers," including committing them to disciplinary schools, stationing policemen in the public schools, and replacing "weak administrators."
On April 20, fifteen JDL members were arrested after chaining themselves to the fence in front of the Soviet Mission to the UN to protest against the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union. On May 8, about fifty JDL members demonstrated outside the Black Panther Party headquarters in Harlem due to an alleged "outrageous explosion of anti-Semitic hatred" by the Panthers. On May 19, the JDL issued a statement attacking American Jewish organizations that opposed the Vietnam War, accusing them of doing more to destroy the State of Israel "than all the Arab armies."
On May 20, 35 JDL members took over the Park East Synagogue, opposite the Soviet Mission, and barricaded the entrances in order to hold a "liberation seder" for Soviet Jewry.
On June 23, about forty JDL members seized two floors of an office building in New York housing Amtorg, the official Soviet Union trade office, and evicted the personnel in what the JDL deemed retaliation for the arrests of Jews and raids on Jewish homes in the Soviet Union.
On June 28, 150 JDL members demonstrated over attacks against the Jews of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in reprisal for the accidental killing of a Black girl by a Jewish driver. Clashes broke out with other minority groups, and arrests were made.
July–September 1970 On August 16, 400 JDL members began a week-long march from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., on behalf of Soviet Jewry, concluding with a rally at Lafayette Park urging President Richard Nixon to "stand tall and firm in the Middle East as you have done elsewhere." In response, Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., a congressional candidate from Montgomery County, Maryland, said he would sponsor a House resolution on Soviet Jewry.
On September 27, two JDL members were arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport while attempting to board a London-bound plane armed with four loaded guns and a live hand grenade. The two intended to hijack a United Arab Airlines plane and divert it to Israel.
October–December 1970 On October 6, the JDL is suspected of bombing the New York office of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a member-party of the PLO, hijacked four airliners the previous month. United Press International reported that an anonymous caller phoned in about a half hour before the explosion and proclaimed the JDL slogan, "Never again."