Five members of the Jewish Defense League–including its chairman, Rabbi Meir Kahane–were arrested yesterday in Brooklyn following a clash between 150 Jews and a group of Negroes and Puerto Ricans. The JDL said it was demonstrating over attacks by Negroes against Jews of the Williamsburg section in reprisal for the accidental killing of a Negro girl last week by a truck driven by a Jew. The police confirmed that such attacks had taken place. Rabbi Kahane and the other four arrested JDL members were scheduled to be arraigned today in Brooklyn Criminal Court. A JDL spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that a Puerto Rican man wielding a knife against a JDL member had his knife taken away by a policeman but was not arrested. A spokesman for the police department called the charge “inconceivable.”
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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.
