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Meir David Kahane (Hebrew:
מאיר דוד כהנא, Kahane being a variation on Cohen or priest) (August 1,
1932–November 5, 1990), Rabbi and member of the Israeli Knesset was
famed first and foremost for his strong racist views and activities.
Among those are the establishment of the Kach party in Israel and of the
Jewish Defense League in the United States. |
Early life
Kahane was born in Brooklyn,
New York, in 1932. He came from a family that adhered to
Orthodox Judaism. Kahane was an ordained rabbi, but he did
not enjoy the thought of being a communal or pulpit rabbi.
He was fully conversant with the Talmud and Tanakh. He
subsequently earned a law degree from New York University.
He became an admirer of Zeev Jabotinsky and Revisionist
Zionism as a teenager and joined its youth wing Betar. He
personally led protests against Ernest Bevin the British
Foreign Secretary who was visiting New York in the 1940s.
Kahane organized and launched public demonstrations in the
US against the Soviet Union's policy of suppressing Zionism
and curbing Jewish immigration to Israel by its Jews. He was
a central activist in the "Free Soviet (Russian) Jewry"
movement.
During the 1960s, Kahane joined the FBI and acted against
anti-Vietnam war movements, undercover. He presented himself
as Michael King, a Presbyterian journalist from South
Africa.
Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in 1968 in
response to threats of violence against Jews by the Black
Panthers and members of the Black Power movement of the
1960s.
Kahane was also in contact with the Joe Colombo, head of the
Colombo mafia family and stood by him on 1971 when Colombo
was shot dead by the Gallo family. Kahane confirmed his
connections on an interview he gave to Playboy magazine in
1972.
Kahane was a book writer, a journalist writing for the
largest Anglo-Jewish weekly, Brooklyn's The Jewish Press and
for a while one of its editors. He appeared often on
American radio and television.
Israel
Rabbi Meir Kahane speakingIn
1971 he emigrated to Israel. He established the Kach Party.
In 1980 Kahane stood unsuccessfully for election to the
Knesset, after which he was sentenced to six months in
prison for plotting to attack Islamic buildings on the
Temple Mount. Upon his release, in 1984 Kahane stood again
for election to the Knesset, and was finally successful. The
Central Elections Committee banned him from being a
candidate on charges of racism, but the Israeli High Court
found that the Committee did not have the legal power to do
so.
In 1985 the Knesset passed an amendment to Israel's Basic
Law: The Knesset banned racist candidates from standing for
election. The Committee applied it to Kahane, who appealed
against the decision to the Israeli High Court. This time
the Court found in favour of the Committee, declaring Kahane
to be unsuitable for election.
Assassinated
Kahane was assassinated in
1990 after giving a speech at a New York City hotel, by El
Sayyid Nosair from Egypt. Nosair was part of a terrorist
cell involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
For a while Kach and Kahanism seemed to have disappeared,
but several small fractions reemerged, one under the name of
Kach and the other Kahane chai (Hebrew: כהנא חי, literally
Kahane lives on). In 1994 following the massacre in the Cave
of the Patriarchs, Israeli government declared both to be
terrorist organizations.
 Kahane's
son Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane and daughter-in-law were murdered
in 2000 when Palestinians opened fire on their car near the
West Bank settlement of Ofra.
On 5th Tevet 5761(December
31st 2000), while he and his family were returning from
Jerusalem to their home in Kfar Tapuach, Binyamin and Taliya
were murdered in a shooting ambush by Arafat's henchmen,
leaving their six children orphaned. This gentle scholar,
who fought like a lion when necessary, embodied the Torah
concept of the scholar-warrior. |
Ideology