Debate – Rabbi Meir Kahane vs. Prof. Alan Dershowitz, 1/4

Judaism v Democracy

July 23, 2012 | 8 Comments »

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8 Comments / 8 Comments

  2. “We will declare those Jews who fail to rid themselves the rust of the exile, and refuse to shave their beards and side-locks, 2nd class citizens. We will not give them the right to vote”

    Zeev Jabotinsky wrote in HaAretz 1919.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKaIeEWTUqw&feature=related
    I think of Kahane had known Jabotinsky’s true feelings towards religious Jews he might not of held such a high opinion of him.

  3. Yaacov,

    I met your brother Ken Sidman when he accompanied Rav Meir Kahane on one of his visits here in the upper Midwest USA. Ken was a fine organizer. It’s unfortunate that Rav Kahane did not have an army of men like Ken Sidman in his service.

    I was the fellow whom Rav Kahane recruited in May 1987 to develop “Kach Newsletter” and to help his Staten Island-based secretary, Adela Levy, to clean up and consolidate his computerized mailing lists. I got all this done and Kach Newsletter was distributed from 1987 until about late 1981. We tried to keep it together after Rav Kahane’s martyrdom in that New York hotel room in November 1990, but Kach began fractionalizing not long after he died.

    Rav Kahane honored me in three unforgettable ways.

    First, he served as “sandek” at the brit ha-mila of my youngest son Ze’ev Harris, in Chicago in May 1987.

    Second, he asked me to edit and publish Kahane Magazine after we got Kach Newsletter going. And as part of that, he allowed me to help him edit the “Authentic Jewish Idea” center-piece of every issue of Kahane Magazine.

    Third, when he came to Madison, Wisconsin for a speech to a large number of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in late October 1990, he stayed at my rural home some distance outside the city. There, more or less all through the night, he led a “siyum” of students in my living room, for the benefit of a number of them who heard him talk at the university and wanted to discuss authentic Judaism and how its role in rebuilding the power of the Jewish nation. Exactly two weeks after that unforgettable night, he was assassinated by an Arab gunman in the hotel in New York.

    I have never forgotten him, and I shall honor his memory as long as I live.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

  4. I was so happy to see this video up here. My brother Ken Sidman Z”L was the moderater of this debate as well as the organizer of it. He originally got permission to host the debate at Boston University but the Hillel Rabbi told the administrators at B.U. that Rabbi Kahane should not be allowed to speak there because he brings violence and trouble whenever he appeared anywhere. Kenny even invited the Hillel Rabbi to give an introduction at the historic debate but Rabbi Pollock was more intent on sabotaging Rabbi Kahane’s apperance there. So Ken Sidman found an actually better place by getting the historic “Old South Meeting House” that didn’t have any Hillel Rabbis attempting to silence and shut out Rabbi Kahane. Rabbi Kahane was vilified and made a pariah of the established American and Israeli elites because he wasn’t afraid to tell the truth. I give credit for Professor Dershowitz for debating Rabbi Kahne but (to be polite) he was no match.

  6. Listen to Prof. Dershowitz trying instruct Rav Kahane on what is and what is not “Jewishness.” He makes a fool of himself.

  7. “I don’t hate Arabs, I love Jews.” There it is. And real Zionism, Jewish Zionism (and there is no other), has very little to do with Western democracy. Rav Kahane was a real Jew; an example of real Judaism to all Jews and non-Jews. Listen to him. A genius.

  8. Alan Dershowitz–is not the best of supporters of Israel–and at some points he is an enemy of Israel and of the Jewish people; Rabbi Kahane was in so many ways one of the best supporters of Israel and of Jews–if the politicos and people of Israel would have followed his wise advise–much innocent Jewish blood which was needlessly spilled–would have been saved–and Israel would be in a much better place now and be more respected among the nations!