1932 - 1990

Rabbi, founder of U.S. Jewish Defense League and the Kach Party in Israel.

Born in New York, Meir Kahane was active in youth movements before becoming a rabbi and writer for Jewish nationalist journals. He founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in 1968 to combat antisemitism. The JDL soon became known as a militant Jewish self-defense organization, and it encountered difficulties with the government because of its violent tactics.

In 1969 Kahane moved to Israel, where he began to speak out against the Black Jews in Dimona. In 1972 his Kach (also Kakh; "thus" in Hebrew) Party became a proponent of inducing Palestinians to leave the West Bank voluntarily; if they would not leave, Kahane proposed expelling them. He believed that Israel should become a theocratic state, and wanted the government to pass laws formally entrenching Orthodox Judaism as the official state religion. He ran for the Knesset unsuccessfully in 1973 and 1977. In 1980 he was sentenced to six months in prison for plotting to attack Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount (al-Haram al-Sharif). After his release he ran for the Knesset in the 1984 election and won a seat, but in 1988 Kach was outlawed on the grounds that it was a racist party. Kahane was assassinated in New York in November 1990.

Kahane's son, Binyamin Kahane, founded the organization Kahane Hai ("Kahane Lives") after his father's assassination. In March 1994 it was declared by the Israeli cabinet to be a terrorist organization and was therefore banned, as Kach had been. Binyamin was assassinated, too, by some Palestinians in a drive-by shooting in December 2000 in the West Bank. According to a 2003 U.S. Department of State report, the group has continued organized protests against the Israeli government and has harassed Palestinians in the West Bank. Kach members have also threatened to attack Israeli government officials and have vowed revenge for the death of Binyamin Kahane and his wife. They have also been suspected of involvement in a number of attacks on Palestinians since the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Bibliography

Ben-David, Calev. "The Life of Meir Kahane: A Cautionary Tale." Jerusalem Post. 22 October 2002.

Kahane, Meir. Never Again! A Program for Survival. Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1971.

Kahane, Meir. Our Challenge: The Chosen Land. Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Co., 1974.

Kahane, Meir. The Story of the Jewish Defense League. Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Co., 1975.

— WALTER F. WEIKER
UPDATED BY GREGORY S. MAHLER

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.