Jewish Defense League

* In response to “Mail-Bombing Suspect a Man of Many Faces,” Aug. 5:

I must, as Los Angeles chapter chairman, express my outrage at the cheap and tawdry attempt to defame my organization and that of our national Chairman Irv Rubin, by publishing a 20-year-old photograph in which he appears. This photo shows Robert Manning, alongside Morton Zusserman and Rubin, following an arrest for a bombing at the residence of an Israeli Arab living in Los Angeles. Using this photo says to your readers that we are bombers, sort of guilt by association. Your article does not clearly explain that five people were arrested that day, of the five, three were released. I should know because I was one of those arrested and released along with Rubin and Zusserman.

Our organization does not bomb! We are a Jewish civil rights organization on the conservative end of the spectrum and represent traditional American and Jewish values. We do believe that God gave us the Torah at Mt. Sinai, the land of Israel was God-given, and he chose the Jewish people to be a light unto nations.

EARL L. KRUGEL

Los Angeles