L.A. area rabbi joined Jesse Jackson mission

"If 'Never Again' is to be more than just a slogan, we, especially as Jews, cannot be indifferent to the immense suffering of the Albanian refugees," Jacobs said.

But Jews must also be aware that "there are many wonderful Serbs, as well as 3,000 Jews, in Belgrade who are living in constant fear of air raids."

Jacobs spoke by phone Monday from Washington after an hourlong session with Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Jacobs, the spiritual leader of Kol Tikvah, a Reform congregation in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, was the only rabbi among 20 clergy who accompanied Jackson during his tense mission.

Belgrade was bombarded heavily during their first night in the Yugoslav capital.

Jacobs, 59, said he had worked with Jackson since the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s. The week before the Belgrade mission, he had attended a service in Mississippi to commemorate the murder there of one black and two Jewish civil-rights workers.

Jacobs was not among the five delegates who participated in the decisive meeting with Milosevic because he preferred to visit the three American POWs. The rabbi added that he also had no desire to shake hands with the Yugoslav leader.

"We must keep up the pressure on Milosevic," Jacobs said.

As a fellow Los Angeles resident, Jacobs established a special bond with one of the freed men, Staff Sgt. Andrew Ramirez. The two agreed to attend a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game together.

Before he left Belgrade, Jacobs met one Jew who had survived the Holocaust due to the efforts of businessman Oskar Schindler.

"I wish at that time there had been a Jackson or a rabbi who had interceded for us with the Nazis as you have done here," Jacobs recalled the survivor telling him.