In 1938 he organized "Die Aktion," a circle of young Viennese Zionists dedicated to making Theodor Herzl's dream of an independent Jewish state a reality.
Perl continued to work with Zionist groups and Greek smugglers, organizing large-scale illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine (Aliyah Bet) and prodding reluctant Jewish leaders into doing the same.
Perl rescued an estimated forty thousand Jews from Nazi occupied Europe, often acting just one step ahead of the Gestapo and of the British agents working to stop illegal immigration.
Together with Raphael Shumacker, Robert E. Byrne, Morris Ellowitz, Harry Thon and Joseph Kirschbaum, Perl was criticized for alleged torture at the interrogations, albeit these claims were later disproven.
[1] Perl became the leader of the Washington, D.C. branch of the Jewish Defense League in the 1970s, and received international media attention for his protests against persecution of Jews by the Soviet Union.
[1] He was arrested and convicted by a Federal jury in Baltimore in November 1976 for conspiring to shoot out the windows of the apartments of two Soviet Embassy officials in Hyattsville, Maryland.