| Meir Kahane |
|
| Date of birth |
1 August 1932(1932-08-01) |
| Year of aliyah |
1971 |
| Date of death |
5 November 1990 (aged 58) |
| Knesset(s) |
11th |
| Party |
Kach |
Meir David Kahane (Hebrew: מאיר דוד כהנא, also known by the pen-names Benyac and David Sinai, 1 August 1932 – 5 November 1990) was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli parliament or Knesset.[1]
Kahane was known in the United States and Israel for political and religious views that included proposing emergency Jewish mass-immigration to Israel due to the imminent threat of a "second Holocaust" in the United States, advocating that Israel's democracy be replaced by a state modeled on Jewish religious law, and promoting the idea of a Greater Israel in which Israel would annex the West Bank and Gaza strip, paying Arabs to leave Israel and those territories voluntarily, and forcibly removing those who would not.
Kahane founded both the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in the USA and Kach ("This is the Way!"), an Israeli political party. In 1984 he became a member of the Knesset when Kach gained one seat in parliamentary elections, but in 1988, Kach was declared a racist party by the Israeli government and was banned from the Knesset. In 1994, following the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre perpetrated by a Kahane follower, Kach was outlawed completely.[2]
Kahane was assassinated in a Manhattan hotel in 1990, after concluding a speech warning American Jews to emigrate to Israel before it was "too late."[3] The assassination occurred shortly after 9 p.m., following a speech to an audience of mostly Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn;[4] as a crowd of well-wishers gathered around Kahane following the speech in the second-floor lecture hall in midtown Manhattan's Marriott East Side Hotel. El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born American citizen, fatally shot Kahane in the neck.[5][6][7]
Biography
Early life and education
Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York in 1932 to an Orthodox Jewish family. His father, Rabbi Yechezkel Sharaga Kahane, was born in Safed, Ottoman Palestine (in present-day Israel), in 1905, and went to study in Polish and Czech yeshiva religious schools.
As a teenager, he became an ardent admirer of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who was a frequent guest in his parents' home, and joined the Betar (Brit Trumpeldor) youth wing of Revisionist Zionism. He was active in protests against Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary who blocked the immigration of Nazi death camp survivors to Palestine and opposed Israel's independence in favor of creating a Hashemite Arab monarchy dependent on British power.
Later, he emigrated to the USA, where he served as rabbi of two congregations. Meir received his rabbinical ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn, and earned a B.A. in political science from Brooklyn College. He was fully conversant with the Talmud and Tanakh (Jewish Bible), and worked as a pulpit rabbi and teacher in the 1960s. During this period, he tutored folk musician Arlo Guthrie for his Bar Mitzvah.[8] Subsequently, he earned a JD from New York Law School and an L.L.M from New York University Law School.
In 1956, Kahane married Libby, with whom he had four children.[9]
In the 1960s, Kahane was an editor of an American-Jewish weekly, Brooklyn's The Jewish Press, and was a regular correspondent for that paper.
As reported by Michael T Kaufman in The New York Times in 1971, Rabbi Kahane lived a double life in the 1960s.[10] He lived as Rabbi Meir Kahane in Brooklyn, but under the pseudonym of "Michael King," he had an apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side where he maintained a relationship with a gentile woman, Gloria Jean D'Argenio.[10] In 1966, Rabbi Kahane/Michael King sent a letter to Ms D'Argenio where he unilaterally ended their relationship. In response, Ms D'Argenio attempted to commit suicide by jumping off the Queensboro ("59th Street") Bridge; she died of her injuries the next day. Rabbi Kahane admitted to Mr Kaufman that he loved Ms D'Argenio and had sent roses to her grave for months after her death.[10]
Kahane organized mass rallies in New York against the Soviet Union's policy of persecuting Zionist activists and curbing Jewish immigration to Israel. He was active in the "Free Soviet (Russian) Jewry" movement and pushed for the release of Russian refuseniks and their resettlement in Israel.
Emigration to Israel, Knesset service
In the U.S., the Jewish Defense League (JDL) engaged in militant activity and harassment of its political and intellectual opponents. Consequently, police pressure began to build upon Kahane, and, in 1971, he emigrated to Israel.
In Israel he established the Kach party. In 1980, Kahane stood unsuccessfully for election to the Knesset. Later, in 1980, Kahane served 6 months in prison following a detention order. According to Ehud Sprinzak, "the prevailing rumour was that a very provocative act of sabotage on the Temple Mount was planned by Kahane and a close associate of his, Baruch Green (also known as Baruch Ben Yosef)."[11]
The Central Elections Committee had banned him from being a candidate on the grounds that Kach was a racist party, but the Israeli High Court determined that the Committee was not authorized to ban Kahane's candidacy. The High Court suggested that the Knesset should pass a law that would authorize the exclusion of racist parties from future elections, and the Anti-Racist Law of 1988 was later passed.In 1984, Kahane was elected as a Member of the Knesset (MK). Kahane refused to take the standard oath of office and insisted on adding a Biblical verse from Psalms, to indicate that when the national laws and Torah conflict, Torah (Biblical) law should have supremacy over the laws of the Knesset.
Kahane's legislative proposals focused on revoking the Israeli citizenship for non-Jews and banning Jewish-Gentile marriages and sexual relations, based on the Code of Jewish Law compiled by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah. None of Israel's mainstream religious parties or prominent rabbis publicly supported Kach legislation.
As his political career progressed, Kahane became increasingly isolated in the Knesset. His speeches, boycotted by Knesset members, were made to an empty parliament, except for the duty chairman and the transcriptionist. Kahane's legislative proposals and motions of no-confidence against the government were ignored or rejected by fellow Knesset members. Kahane often pejoratively called other Knesset members "Hellenists" in Hebrew (a reference from Jewish religious texts describing ancient Jews who assimilated into Greek culture after Judea's occupation by Alexander the Great). In 1987, Rabbi Kahane opened a yeshiva (HaRaayon HaYehudi) with funding from US supporters, for the teaching of "the Authentic Jewish Idea".
In 1985, the Knesset passed an amendment to Israel's Basic Law, barring "racist" candidates from election. The committee banned Kahane a second time, and he appealed to the Israeli High Court. This time the court found in favor of the committee, declaring Kahane to be unsuitable for election.
Assassination
In November 1990, after a speech in a Manhattan, New York, Marriott hotel, Kahane was assassinated. The prime suspect, El Sayyid Nosair, was subsequently acquitted of murder but convicted on gun possession charges.[12] Kahane was buried in Jerusalem. The killer was recharged, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment some years later, after the discovery of his membership in one of Sheikh Omar Abd El-Rahman's terror cells connected to Al-Qaeda in the United States. During the filming of a documentary on Kahane, Nosair sent a letter in which he admitted he was the killer.[citation needed]
Ideology
Kahane argued that observance of Torah was the only reason to be Jewish, and that "democracy and Judaism are not the same thing."[13]
Kahane also believed that a Jewish democracy with non-Jewish citizens was self-contradictory because the non-Jewish citizens might someday become a numerical majority and vote to make the state non-Jewish: "The question is as follows: if the Arabs settle among us and make enough children to become a majority, will Israel continue to be a Jewish state? Do we have to accept that the Arab majority will decide?"[14] He did not support equal rights for all people irrespective of racial or religious origins.[15]
Kahane claimed that historically there are no examples of Arab Muslims living peacefully alongside non-Arab ethnic groups, and proposed the forcible deportation of nearly all Arabs from all lands controlled by the Israeli government. He framed this deportation as an "exchange of populations" that would continue the Jewish exodus from Arab lands: "A total of some 750,000 Jews fled Arab lands since 1948. Surely it is time for Jews, worried over the huge growth of Arabs in Israel, to consider finishing the exchange of populations that began 35 (50) years ago." Kahane proposed a $40,000 compensation plan for Arabs who would leave voluntarily, force "for those who don’t want to leave,"[14] and encouraged retaliatory violence against Arabs who attacked Jews: "I approve of anybody who commits such acts of violence. Really, I don’t think that we can sit back and watch Arabs throwing rocks at buses whenever they feel like it. They must understand that a bomb thrown at a Jewish bus is going to mean a bomb thrown at an Arab bus."[14]
Kahane proposed a Jewish state "according to the description given in the Bible." He said, "the southern boundary goes up to El Arish, which takes in all of northern Sinai, including Yamit. To the east, the frontier runs along the western part of the East Bank of the Jordan river, hence part of what is now Jordan. Eretz Yisrael also includes part of the Lebanon and certain parts of Syria, and part of Iraq, all the way to the Tigris River.[14] When critics suggested this would mean perpetual war between Jews and Arabs, Kahane answered, "There will be a perpetual war. With or without Kahane."
Political legacy
Graffiti in
Herzliya: "כהנא צדק" ("Kahane was right")
Following Kahane's death, no charismatic leader emerged to replace him in the movement, and Kahane's ideology declined in popularity among Israelis. Two small Kahanist factions later emerged; one under the name of Kach and the other Kahane chai (Hebrew: כהנא חי, literally "Kahane lives [on]").
In 1994, following the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre of Palestinian Muslim worshippers in Hebron by Kach supporter Dr. Baruch Goldstein, in which 29 Palestinian Muslim worshippers were killed, the Israeli government declared both parties to be terrorist organizations.[16][17] The U.S. State Department also added Kach and Kahane Chai to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Providing funds or material support to these organizations is a crime in both Israel and the USA.
In late 2000, as bombing attacks on Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada began, Kahane supporters spray-painted graffiti on hundreds of bus shelters and bridges all across Israel. The message on each target was identical, simply reading: "Kahane Was Right".
On December 31, 2000, one of his sons, Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, and his daughter-in-law Talya, were shot to death as they returned from Jerusalem to their home in the Israeli settlement of Kfar Tapuach. Palestinian gunmen fired more than 60 machine-gun rounds into their van.
The 1994 banning of Kach and Kahane Chai saw no party representing the 'Kahanist' position in politics until the 2008 elections saw Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party rise to prominence. Lieberman, who allegedly was a one-time Kach member, has been branded "Kahane's successor" by Israeli TV personality Haim Yavin.[18] Michael Ben-Ari, elected to the Knesset in 2009 on the Ihud Haleumi list, is a self-declared follower of Rabbi Kahane who was involved with Kach for many years.
Previously, Herut, which split off from the National Union list ran in 2002 with Michael Kleiner and Hebron resident Baruch Marzel taking the top two spots on the list. The joint effort narrowly missed the 1.5% minimum necessary for entry into the Knesset. The second faction, Jewish National Front led by Baruch Marzel, fared better but also failed to pass the minimum threshold.
Supporters
In a 1971 interview, Bob Dylan made some positive comments about Kahane. In Time Magazine, Dylan stated, "He's a really sincere guy. He's really put it all together."[19] According to Kahane, Dylan did attend several meetings of the Jewish Defense League in order to find out "what we're all about"[20] and started to have talks with the rabbi.[21]
In an article written in January 2001 on a forum of the Jewish Defense League, activist Joe Kaufman praised the Kahane movement and its founder Meir Kahane. In that article Kaufman said of Kahane: "It was perfectly understandable, if he were to have hated Arabs. Just like, during the Holocaust, it was perfectly understandable for a Jew to hate Germans…If the Kahanes' memory serves us any purpose, it's to show that trust (and peace) is ultimately between only ourselves."
The Religious Zionist group known as the Jewish Task Force claims to follow Kahane's teachings on its website.[22]
See also
Publications
- (Partially under pseudonym Michael King; with Joseph Churba) The Jewish Stake in Vietnam, Crossroads, 1967
- Never Again! A Program for Survival, Pyramid Books, 1972
- Time to Go Home, Nash, 1972.
- Letters from Prison, Jewish Identity Center, 1974
- Our Challenge: The Chosen Land, Chilton, 1974
- The Story of the Jewish Defense League, Chilton, 1975, 2nd edition, Institute for Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, (Brooklyn, NY), 2000
- Why Be Jewish? Intermarriage, Assimilation, and Alienation, Stein & Day, 1977
- Listen, Vanessa, I Am a Zionist, Institute of the Authentic Jewish Idea, 1978
- They Must Go, Grosset & Dunlop, 1981
- Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews, Lyle Stuart, 1987
- Israel: Revolution or Referendum, Barricade Books (Secaucus, NJ), 1990
- Or ha-ra'yon, English title: The Jewish Idea, n.p. (Jerusalem), 1992, translated from the Hebrew by Raphael Blumberg, Institute for Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (Jerusalem), 1996
- On Jews and Judaism: Selected Articles 1961–1990, Institute for Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (Jerusalem), 1993
- Perush ha-Makabi: al Sefer Devarim, Institute for Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (Jerusalem), 1993, 1995
- Perush ha-Makabi: al Sefer Shemu'el u-Nevi'im rishonim, Institute for Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (Jerusalem), 1994
- Listen World, Listen Jew, 3rd edition, Institute for the Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (Jerusalem), 1995
- Kohen ve-navi: osef ma'amarim, ha-Makhon le-hotsa'at kitve ha-Rav Kahana (Jerusalem), 2000
- Cuckooland, illustrated by Shulamith bar Itzhak (yet unpublished).
- DVD-quality downloadable videos of Meir Kahane's lectures, SamsonBlinded.org
Also author of Numbers 23:9: "... lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations," I. Block, 1970s. Contributor—sometimes under pseudonym Michael King—to periodicals, including New York Times. Editor of Jewish Press, 1968.
For supplementary information and insights:
References
- ^ Rabbi Meir Kahane Jewish Virtual Library
- ^ Kahane's Knesset career was ended by section 7a of Basic Law: The Knesset (1958): "Prevention of Participation of Candidates List."
- ^ Jewish militant faces bomb trial BBC News, 15 June 2004
- ^ Specter, Michael (1990-11-06). "Jewish Leader Kahane Slain in New York". Washington Post.
- ^ Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003). Terror in the Mind of God. University of California Press. pp. 59.
- ^ Katz, Samuel M. "Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the manhunt for the al-Qaeda terrorists", 2002
- ^ Hamm, Mark S (2007). Terrorism as Crime: From Oklahoma City to Al-Qaeda and Beyond. NYU Press, p 29
- ^ "A Jewish Visit to Guthrie’s Land". http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=13314.
- ^ Carrying a Torch
- ^ a b c http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/06/weekinreview/remembering-kahane-and-the-woman-on-the-bridge.html
- ^ Kach and Meir Kahane: The Emergence of Jewish Quasi-Fascism by Ehud Sprinzak, published by The American Jewish Committee.
- ^ Jury Selection Seen As Crucial to Verdict
- ^ "One absolutely cannot confuse them. The objective of a democratic state is to allow a person to do exactly as he wishes. The objective of Judaism is to serve God and to make people better. These are two totally opposite conceptions of life.God's Law: an Interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane
- ^ a b c d Kahane.org
- ^ "Western democracy has to be ruled out. For me that's cut and dried: there's no question of setting up democracy in Israel, because democracy means equal rights for all, irrespective of racial or religious origins."
- ^ "Kach and Kahane Chai". http://web.archive.org/web/20021216072525/library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/kach.htm.
- ^ "Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT)". http://www.ict.org.il/inter_ter/orgdet.cfm?orgid=19.
- ^ "Lieberman was involved in radical right Kach movement". http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061350.html.
- ^ Bob Dylan interview
- ^ The Wandering Kind by Douglas Wolk
- ^ Heylin, Clinton (2001). Bob Dylan Behind the Shades. The Biography-Take Two. London: Penguin Books. pp. 328. ISBN 0-1402-8146-0.
- ^ http://www.jtf.org/israel/israel.ben.pesach.speech.interrupted.part.three.htm
External links
Video and Audio links
Rabbi Meir Kahane Videos
Rabbi Meir Kahane Audios
