Lee Keller (location not mentioned) jumped in line first to get the correct answer to last week's question, "Which famous drug promoter did the Weather Underground terrorists break out of prison, helping him flee America?" Timothy Leary, the notorious Harvard psychology professor who promoted drug use (especially of the severely psychoactive LSD) was arrested and imprisoned on multiple charges of drug possession and use. But in 1970, members of the Cuban-directed Weather Underground Organization broke him out of prison, provided him a forged passport, and smuggled him out of America to Communist Algeria. There, the Black Panther terrorists (who were also being protected by the Communists) gave him a temporary haven. Leary was later re-captured and put in US prison, paroled a few years later, and ultimately died of cancer in 1996.

Aside from the general Communist policy of promoting drug use in non-Communist countries, the Weather Underground had at least one more connection to Leary's drug pushing: The compound LSD was used by those terrorists, not for "recreation," but as a powerful mind-control drug for interrogations of fellow terrorists and suspected police informants. Promoted by these terrorists and their sympathizers to society at large, such chemicals have proved effective in ruining many lives and tragically seducing others into the web of Communist revolution.

And now for this week's contest question:

Be sure to e-mail your name and answer to [address withheld] by Sunday, May 22, 2005, 12pm PST.

This week's example: Rabbi Yehoshua Eliezrie, Chabad of the Foothills, Tustin, CA

Rabbi Eliezrie received a copy of our proclamation (calling on all Jews to participate in the campaign to defund the PLO) on February 15, 2005 at 11:37am, yet despite the urgent crisis in Israel — as reflected in our cover letter to him, asking him to send his endorsement within 10 days — he has never responded.

By Divine Providence, JAHG-USA founder Boruch Ellison ran into this same Rabbi Eliezrie in the local kosher store of Orange County a few days before Passover. Neither person recognized the other until being introduced. When Ellison realized this was the Yehoshua Eliezrie who had not answered the call for endorsement, he immediately took the opportunity to press the Chabad shliach on the matter. Caught off guard, Eliezrie first apologized for not answering at all, then went strangely silent, refusing to discuss the matter further, mumbled a quick excuse, and abruptly left without explanation. In other words, he absolutely did not wish to sign, nor did he even want to give any reason.

Eliezrie's father, Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, is also a Chabad representative in Orange County, running the Chabad of Yorba Linda; as we previously mentioned in this newsletter, he, too, has never responded to the proclamation — which he received over two years ago!

Yehoshua, the son, is a young rabbi just starting his own Chabad house in the area, while his father is better-established for many years. If one imagines that the elder Eliezrie refuses to sign because he fears losing financial contributions (a nonsensical idea, of course), that would not explain the unwillingness to save Jewish lives by his son, who has no financial empire at stake thus far. Clearly, only some powerful coldness of the yetzer hara (the evil inclination) has turned these shluchim into monsters who allow their fellow Jews to die without even lifting a finger (such as a signature) to help save them. Needless to say, neither of the Eliezrie's, nor any other Chabad shliach in California that we know of, has ever lifted a finger to stop PLO funding — or even to acknowledge the existence of the issue, no matter how much we have brought it to their attention over the past decade.

To emphasize the importance of this campaign, we now begin serializing the halachos (religious rules of Judaism) cited in that proclamation, as a reminder of why we are all obligated to participate:

Proclamation Rule No. 1
Every Jew, regardless of age or position, has an obligation under Jewish law to save the life of a fellow Jew whose life is in danger (the obligation of pikuach nefesh — literally, "checking after living souls," the obligation of actively making sure every individual is out of danger).

What do you think about Jewish leadership on PLO defunding? Send us your comments at [address withheld].

For a complete listing of all rabbis who have received our proclamation, and the up-to-date status of their responses, visit ATTAC Report at http://www.attacreport.com/plo/.

This Week on ATTAC Report

This week's edition of our sister site, ATTAC Report, presents: How Clinton pushed Haiti into Communism; the world strategic picture in 1960; three dozen concentration camps and prisons in (Soviet) Moldova.

"...I truly admire your efforts to end funding for terrorists. Who could be against it?" — TH.

"...The nine rabbis who refused to sign the proclamation. what were their reasons?" — RS, Chapel Hill, TN.

Our answer: Our site currently lists 5 rabbis who have signed the proclamation for PLO defunding and 38 who refuse to sign. "The nine rabbis" presumably refers to those who were approached in person and thus forced to refuse on the spot rather than simply ignoring it.

Not one of those "refusenik" rabbis has given any explicit reason for not signing, although every single one has made it clear he also hopes we will not publicize his refusal; in other words, none can offer any reason not to sign, and all are ashamed of not doing so. So what did they say when asked? Most simply changed the subject or tried to evade the question without giving a straight answer at all, hoping to duck out altogether. Two others repeated lashon hara (false and malicious rumors) about author Boruch Ellison, refusing to listen to reason. And one other, the head of a Jewish court and a large community, strangely insisted we first ask lesser rabbis.

The fact that five rabbis (including three Lubavitchers) have signed endorsements of the JAHG-USA campaign shows not every rabbi is corrupt. But unfortunately, too many others have other (unnamed) priorities — a direct violation of Torah. It's time for every single person to contact these rabbis, to congratulate the ones who signed and to demand that the others start fulfilling their basic Jewish responsibilities.

Send your letter to the editor to [address withheld].

Be sure to visit our Web site, Noahide.com.