Again, again, again.
Blood, blood, blood . . .
Art comes cheap no longer
when an innocent being
pays for it with her life.
Who are you, murderers, faces unseen?
—Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Flailing his arms and howling with indignation, Russia's most famous poet declaimed his verse to a packed house at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum last week at the beginning of a U.S. tour. Eugene McCarthy read a poem against the war in Viet Nam. He was joined by more professional American poets, including James Dickey and Richard Wilbur. The Bijou Singers emitted a chorus of eerie wails, echoing such Yevtushenko lines as: "The stars in your flag, America, are bullet holes." The climax of the spectacle came, however, when Yevtushenko read Bombs for Balalaikas, composed overnight in protest against the bombing of Impresario Sol Hurok's office earlier in the week. Threats of a similar bombing of Yevtushenko's reading had already sent police scurrying to search the Forum's audience.
Never Again. Incendiary bombs had exploded almost simultaneously in two Manhattan office buildings. One burst in Hurok's New York headquarters, which was immediately engulfed in dense black smoke that killed a young secretary and incapacitated nine others, including Hurok, who was briefly hospitalized and then released. The second was detonated in the office of Columbia Artists, another talent agency, which was luckily almost empty; most of the employees had not yet arrived for work. Within minutes, anonymous callers to the Associated Press and NBC claimed that the bombs had been set to protest "the deaths and imprisonment of Soviet Jews." They also shouted the slogan of the Jewish Defense League: "Never again!"
The fanatical J.D.L. has been harassing Russian diplomats, entertainers and their families for two years, but its leaders were quick to disclaim responsibility for last week's crime. From Israel, where he is trying to form a worldwide J.D.L., Rabbi Meir Kahane called the bombings "insane." The acting head of J.D.L., New York Attorney Bertram Zweibon, denied that there had ever been a J.D.L. plan to bomb the Hurok and Columbia offices, both of which have booked Russian talent for the U.S. Hurok, 83, has long been an object of the league's enmity. As the foremost importer of Russian talent, he introduced the Bolshoi Ballet, the Moiseyev dancers and Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, among others, to American audiences. He signed Ashkenazy for a concert in Carnegie Hall last week, and the league called out its storm troopers to picket the performance. Hurok learned of the planned demonstration and informed Zweibon that Ashkenazy was a defector from Soviet Russia and that "the league would be nuts to picket him." Zweibon says that he called off the protest.
The New York City police have no hard evidence implicating the league. But there is no escaping the league's ultimate connection with the attacks. Its message of violence and hate has struck a responsive chord with a tiny but clearly dangerous element among American Jews. Ironically, Hurok is Jewish, as was the bomber's victim, Iris Kones, 27.