Meir Kahane
Meir David HaKohen Kahane (/kəˈhɑːnə/ kə-HAH-nə; Hebrew: רבי מאיר דוד הכהן כהנא; born Martin David Kahane;[1] August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset before being convicted of acts of terrorism. He founded the Israeli political party Kach. A cofounder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), he espoused strong views against antisemitism.
According to his widow, he organized defense squads and patrols in Jewish neighborhoods, and demanded that the Soviet Union allow Refusenik to emigrate to Israel.[2] He supported violence against those he regarded as enemies of the Jewish people, and called for immediate Jewish mass migration to Israel to avoid a potential "Holocaust" in the United States, popularizing the slogan Never Again through a book of the same name.[3] He also popularized the slogan "For Every Jew a .22."[4] He supported the restriction of Israel's democracy to its Jewish citizens, and endorsed the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[5]
In 1968, Kahane was one of the co-founders of the JDL in the United States. In 1971, he co-founded Kach ("Thus"), a new political party in Israel. That same year, he was convicted in New York for conspiracy to manufacture explosives and received a suspended sentence of five years.[6] In Israel, he was convicted for plotting to blow up the Libyan embassy in Brussels in revenge for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, receiving a suspended sentence and probation.[7] In 1984, he became a member of the Knesset, when Kach gained its only-ever seat in parliamentary elections. Kahane was boycotted across the aisles of the Knesset, and would often speak in front of an empty chamber. The Israel Broadcasting Authority similarly avoided coverage of his activities. The Central Elections Committee tried to ban Kahane from running in the 1984 elections, but this ban was overturned by the Supreme Court because there was no law to support it. In response, the Knesset approved an ad hoc law that allowed for the banning of parties that are "racist" or "undemocratic". In 1988, despite polls showing Kach gaining popularity due in part to the ongoing First Intifada, Kach was banned from entering that year's elections.[8]
Kahane publicized his Kahanism ideology through published works, weekly articles, speeches, debates on college campuses and in synagogues throughout the United States, and appearances on various televised programs and radio shows. In Israel, he proposed enforcing Halakha as codified by Maimonides[9] and hoped that Israel would eventually adopt Halakha as state law.[10] Non-Jews wishing to dwell in Israel would have three options: remain as "resident strangers" with limited rights,[11] leave Israel and receive compensation for their property, or be forcibly removed without compensation.[12] While serving in the Knesset in the mid-1980s Kahane proposed numerous laws, none of which passed, to emphasize Judaism in public schools, reduce Israel's bureaucracy, forbid sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, separate Jewish and Arab neighborhoods, and end cultural meetings between Jewish and Arab students.[8] He went as far as to demand that non-Jews in Israel either become slaves or face deportation.[13] Kahane was assassinated in a New York City hotel by an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen in November 1990. His legacy continues to influence militant and far-right political groups active today in Israel.[14]
Personal life
Meir Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Orthodox Jewish family.[15] Kahane was a member of an established rabbinic family, including his father, who was head of the Flatbush Board of Rabbis.[16]: 287 His father, Yechezkel Shragei (Charles) Kahane (1905–1978), was the rabbi of a large synagogue in Brooklyn, author of the interpretive Torah translation Torah Yesharah, and a strong supporter of the Revisionist Zionist movement.[17] Kahane's grandfather was Nachman Kahane (1869–1937), a leading rabbinic scholar in Safed, who was the son of Baruch David Kahane (1850–1925), the author of Hibat ha-Eretz, and a disciple of Chaim Halberstam of Sanz. Baruch David was a direct descendant of Simcha Rappaport (1650–1718), of the Rappaport rabbinic family, who were allegedly able to trace their ancestry back to Eleazar ben Azariah, a 1st-century sage in the Land of Israel. Baruch David immigrated to Ottoman Palestine from Poland in 1873.[18] Kahane's father was born in Safed while his mother Sonia was born in Latvia.[19] An uncle of Kahane's was killed in Safed during the 1929 Palestine riots.[20]
As a teenager, Kahane became an ardent admirer of Jabotinsky and Peter Bergson, who were frequent guests in his parents' home. He joined the Betar (Brit Trumpeldor) youth wing of Revisionist Zionism. He was active in protests against Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary who maintained restrictions on the immigration of Jews, even Holocaust survivors, to Palestine after the end of the Second World War. In 1947, Kahane was arrested for throwing eggs and tomatoes at Bevin, who was disembarking at Pier 84 on a visit to New York. A photo of the arrest appeared in the New York Daily News.[21] In 1954, he became the Mazkir (Secretary) of Greater New York City's 16 Bnei Akiva chapters.
Kahane's formal education included Yeshiva of Flatbush for elementary school and Brooklyn Talmudical Academy for high school.[22] Kahane received his rabbinical ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where he was especially admired by the head Rabbi Abraham Kalmanowitz.[23] He was fully conversant in the Tanakh (Jewish Bible), the Talmud, the Midrash and Jewish law. Subsequently, Kahane earned a B.A. in political science from Brooklyn College in 1954, a Bachelor of Law – LL.B. from New York Law School, and an M.A. in International Relations from New York University.[1][24]
In 1956, Kahane married Libby Blum, with whom he had four children:[25] Tzipporah,[26] Tova, Baruch, and Binyamin.[25][27] Binyamin became an Orthodox Jewish scholar, rabbi, and far-right political leader aligned with Kahane's political movement, and was later killed in 2000.
In 1966, Kahane, under the alias of Michael King and while already married, had an affair and became engaged to marry the 21-year-old model Gloria Jean D'Argenio (who used the stage name Estelle Donna Evans).[28] Kahane sent a letter to D'Argenio in which he unilaterally ended their relationship. D'Argenio was never aware of Kahane's real identity and at the time she received the letter, she had been expecting him to marry her in two days and had recently learned she was pregnant by him.[28] Upon receiving the letter, D'Argenio jumped off the Queensboro Bridge and died of her injuries the next day.[29][30] In 2008, Kahane's wife dismissed the incident as lacking proof.[31]
After D'Argenio's death, Kahane started the Estelle Donna Evans Foundation in her name.[28][31] Kahane claimed D'Argenio had been his former secretary in his failed consulting operation, had died of cancer, and that her "well-to-do" family had endowed the foundation.[28] In reality, the money was used to fund the JDL, including supplies for bombings and Kahane's lavish travel.[28]
Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in New York City in 1968. Its self-described purpose was to protect Jews from local manifestations of anti-Semitism.[43] Kahane encouraged Jews to take up firearms, through his slogan "every Jew a .22".[3]
The JDL said it was committed to five fundamental principles:
According to his wife Libby Kahane, the JDL favored "civil rights for blacks, but opposed black anti-Semites[44] and racism of any form."[45] In 1971, the JDL formed an alliance with a black rights group in what Kahane termed "a turning point in Black-Jewish relations".[46] The Anti-Defamation League claimed that Kahane "preached a radical form of Jewish nationalism which reflected racism, violence and political extremism"[43] that was replicated by Irv Rubin, the JDL's successor to Kahane.[47]
Terrorism and convictions
A number of the JDL's members and leaders, including Kahane, were convicted of acts related to domestic terrorism.[48] In 1971, Kahane was sentenced to a suspended five-year prison sentence and fined $5,000 for conspiring to manufacture explosives.[6] In 1975, Kahane was arrested for leading the attack on the Soviet United Nations mission and injuring two officers, but he was released after being given summonses for disorderly conduct. Later the same year, Kahane was accused of conspiring to kidnap a Soviet diplomat, bomb the Iraqi embassy in Washington, and ship arms abroad from Israel. He was convicted of violating his probation for the 1971 bombing conviction and was sentenced to one year in prison.[49] However, he served most of it in a hotel, with frequent unsupervised absences, because of a concession over the provision of kosher food.[50]
In a 1984 interview with Washington Post correspondent Carla Hall, Kahane admitted that the JDL "bombed the Russian [Soviet] mission in New York, the Russian cultural mission here [Washington] in 1971, the Soviet trade offices".[51][52]
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