Rabbi Kahane and his writings

By Ted Belman

I recently met David Fein, an American, in the home of an activist friend of mine in Jerusalem. He is in the process of making aliya.

He wrote to inform me that he compiled and edited a seven volume set of books of the writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane z”l which he titled Beyond Words.. Here’s what Amazon has to say about Kahane and his writings:

Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932-1990) was the most controversial Jew of his generation. Born in New York, he was the son of a rabbi and was descended from a long line of rabbis. He studied at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn and was ordained in 1956. He also earned a law degree from New York Law School and received a Master’s degree in International Relations from New York University. Rabbi Kahane founded the legendary Jewish Defense League in 1968 to combat the growing rise of anti-Semitism. He led a campaign of disobedience, sometimes violent, which ultimately led to the emigration of millions of oppressed Jews from the Soviet Union. He spent two decades touring American college campuses, exhorting Jewish students to be proud of their Jewishness, to learn about Judaism, and to immigrate to Israel. A passionate Zionist, he and his family immigrated to Israel in 1971. Entering the political arena, he ran for the Knesset unsuccessfully three consecutive times before his Kach Movement was finally elected in 1984. Its platform called for an emphasis on Judaism in the Israeli educational system and a Jewish outlook in its internal and foreign policy, including the removal of Israel’s hostile Arab population. Kach was banned from running in the 1988 election, at which time polls showed it to be the third most popular party in Israel. Rabbi Kahane was arrested over 130 times for Jewish causes. A prolific author, Meir Kahane wrote 22 books in English and Hebrew. His widely-read column appeared in the Jewish Press from 1961 to 1990.

This seven volume collection is the definitive anthology of the writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, selected from the columns in the Jewish Press and other publications. Spanning a period of thirty years, it contains a wealth of topics: Judaism, Zionism, Israel, the Holocaust, assimilation, territorial concessions, violence and peace. Rabbi Meir Kahane was a master of the both the deed and the word. These writings will inspire, teach, and chastise, as they did when they first appeared. It is impossible to remain indifferent to the fiery words of this modern-day Jewish prophet. Generations of former Soviet Jews will forever thank Rabbi Kahane for helping them obtain freedom. Future generations of Israelis, for their part, may well be grateful for his inspired vision that can enable peaceful Jewish life in the Land of Israel. This collection is published in the hope that it will serve as a guide to every thinking person for whom the destiny of the Jewish people is important. Beyond Words will surely take its place in the library of outstanding Jewish literature.

March 4, 2013 | 21 Comments »

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21 Comments / 21 Comments

  2. He really was a modern day prophet. If you hear him talk, he predicted what the politically correct ‘liberal’ Jews would do with Israel. Who would have believed back in 1948 that one day Jew hating Arabs would be part of the Israeli government?
    The answer: Rabbi Kahane. Of course it wasn’t just mainstream Jews who hated (feared is more accurate) him, it was all left leaning liberals. I’m still waiting for the US to charge and arrest his murderer! He really did have the world against him. He was one of the bravest persons I’ve ever known.

    In Toronto, I attended a meeting with a bunch of ulta kuckers (old geezers) at the JDL basement office. We connected with the leader of EDL via Skype (English Defense League), a group in England who are fighting to get their country back from the Islamists. Outside the building a crowd of anti-Semites was gathering. Eventually the police showed up to break up the crowd. The cops made us break up the meeting early as they couldn’t vouch for our safety. A police car was smashed up and a policeman had his ribs broken by one of the crazies in the crowd with a bat. The next day in one of our local public papers (Toronto Sun), I was stunned to read an article by our then CEO of the Cdn Jewish Congress about the event: Whenever you mix the JDL and EDL together you get violence. He mentioned the cop getting hurt and the vandalized police car. He implied that it was us (JDL folk) who were guilty of violence. I was so shocked that I had to call him and call him out on that. He admitted that he wasn’t there (no kidding). The big point here is how can we defend ourselves in this highly toxic world when we are fighting amongst ourselves. I’m sure that Rabbi Kahane was rolling over in his grave that day.

  4. @ John Frost:

    “Meir Kahane was a Jewish patriot but liberal Jews destroyed him…”

    Not merely liberal ones, it seems.

    In the end, Shamir went for the ban — not because (like the liberals) he regarded Kahane as ‘racist’

    — rather, because it had become clear that in any forthcoming election, the Kach Party would garner at least 8 (and possibly as many as 11) Knesset seats

    And that most of them would come out of the Likud column.

  9. @ yamit82:

    Liberal Jews.including my relatives, prefere to be victumns and pitied. The ADL still is cowering from “Natzis and Fascist instead of facing the real threat.
    WHy do Jewish nothers emasculate their sons? I like Israeli men,they have cajones.

  11. Rabbi Kahane was not a nebbish, therefore for Jewish liberals, a bad Jew. Jewish liberals identify with the image of the Jew as a pitiful victim.

  12. I first met Rav Meir Kahane in Milwaukee WI in 1986. I immediately got involved on his behalf with the Kach group in the USA and Canada. My initial help to him was writing op-ed pieces for which I arranged publication in a couple of daily newspapers in the USA, and helping his Brooklyn-based office assistant standardize her relatively large computerized mailing lists.

    The following year, in May 1987, Rav Kahane flew into Chicago’s Midway Airport, where I met him and drove him through the city. That afternoon, he accorded me the great honor of serving as sandek at the Brit HaMila of my youngest son, Ze’ev Stjepan Harris, in a West Rogers Park synagogue whose Rav Aaron M Rine was the Orthodox rav who had officiated in my marriage in early 1973.

    Later that same day, I had a two-hour meeting with Rav Kahane at the Northside Chicago home of one of the local Kachnikim. I helped him lay out a plan to initiate, edit, print and distribute a monthly Kach Newsletter. KN was immediately successful in helping his US and Canadian outreach and fundraising efforts. That evening, we were part of a large audience that witnessed a formal debate in which Rav Kahane all but tore to shreds the arguments of one of Chicagoland’s leading lights of the liberal and well-moneyed Jewish community.

    Three years later, I helped a group of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison organize a campus speaking engagement for Rav Kahane, to be followed by putting him up as an overnight guest in our home in the rural parts of far western Dane County WI.

    I can never forget or forgive the role played by the liberal and leftist-oriented campus Hillel organization to helping round up a gang of Arabs and other Jew-haters who tried in furious desperation to disrupt Rav Kahane’s presentation in the campus auditorium. But that night, almost as a modern miracle, nultiple groups of students drove out to our home, where Rav Kahane sat up with us and them most of the night to lead a “siyum” (discussion) about authentic Judaism, Jewish nationalism and his struggle in Israel on behalf of both Judaism and the Jewish nation.

    Exactly two weeks later, he was shot dead by an Arab in a New York ballroom at which nobody among the Jewish organizers of the event had thought to arrange his protection.

    I have and and read all Rav Kahane’s books that I know of, along with many of his writings published in the Jewish Press, and copies of Kahane Magazine and the Kach Newsletters that I edited, published and distributed for him. I shall never forget Rav Kahane as long as I can stay alive, and I shall never walk away from the principles for which he lived and was martyred.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb

  13. @ RaymondF:
    You make a very good point about the Israeli Arabs getting a free pass running for office in Israel unimpeded by their anti-Israel, certainly anti-Jewish venom. I don’t generally follow such “candidates” or read up on the details of what they say as I obviously have no intention of supporting them so the point you make is very worthwhile. Surely it’s not legal in the United States for a Member of Congress to stand up and call for the destruction of America on the House floor. These Arab MK’s are exactly what Kahane was talking about. As far as American Jews who identify as liberals, and they don’t know it yet but, when the country becomes increasing islamicized and they need a place to go they better hope that they can come to Israel. Kahane would take them in with open arms.

  14. @ David Chase:
    It is beyond my comprehension that Kahane and his party were forbidden to run for the Knesset as “racist” in their views when now there are openly Jew-hating Arab Israelis not only running for office but proudly ensconced in it. Furthermore they spew their hatred openly and with impunity.

    David, you are so right to doubt these liberal Jews would view the destruction of Israel as a “personal tragedy for them.” What will it take for them to see the world as it really is? They’re digging their own graves, blissfully ignorant and unaware.

  15. @ Dean:
    This is my second time attempting this post. Since I was having trouble sending the comment solo I decided to send it as a reply to, in this case, Dean’s comment. It’s meant to be a separate comment. One of the things that most people who disliked and dislike Kahane so vehemently for was what they claimed was his “racist” attitudes. It wasn’t that Kahane hated Arabs it’s just that he loved Jews and as a realist, and, unfortunately,as most Arabs didn’t and don’t feel the same way, his ideas and policies needed to be heard. Most American Jews who identify themselves as liberals and vote Democrat have probably never even been to Israel and, I sometimes wonder, although I really don’t, whether if asked if the destruction of Israel would be a personal tragedy for them or if the end or decline of Judaism in today’s world would be troublesome, what they would say. Then again, I don’t really wonder.

  17. There are rabbis today who refuse to support/attend at an upcoming pro-Israel event in Canada that counters IAW and presents Israel in a positive light because the JDL will be attending and speaking at the same event. The irrationality of the Jewish liberal mainstream is hard to fathom.

  18. Meir Kahane was a Jewish patriot but liberal Jews destroyed him
    Liberal Jews hate Israel and have Obama as their spokesman and want to disarm the American people.

  19. I already have the 7 volume set of Beyond Words that I purchased directly from Libby Kahane almost 2 years ago. They are amazing books that contain never before published articles and personal letter from Rav Kahane. A must read for all.

  21. It is deplorable that Israel labelled him a racist and outlawed him and Kach his party from the Knesset. He had every right to express his opinion, though not PC, and to do so in the political arena.