Rabbi and Jewish activist, born in New York City, New York, USA. At age 15, he was arrested in a protest against the British policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine. Ordained as an Orthodox rabbi, he earned a law degree from New York University, and became a synagogue rabbi and editor of the Jewish Press. In the 1960s he founded the Jewish Defense League, which advocated the use of violence to defend Jewish rights. After moving to Israel (1971), he founded Kach, a movement aimed at removing Arabs from Israel. He earned a seat in the Israeli parliament (1981), but his party was later barred from office. He was assassinated in New York, and his alleged assailant, an Egyptian-born American citizen, was found not guilty. He was the author of The Jewish Stake in Vietnam and Never Again.
Kahane was known in the United States and Israel for his strong political and nationalist views, exemplified in his promotion of a theocratic "Greater Israel". Kahane's Knesset career was ended by section 7a of Basic Law: The Knesset (1958): "Prevention of Participation of Candidates List."
Kahane was assassinated by El Sayyid Nosair in Manhattan in 1990 after concluding a speech in a New York hotel.
Early life
Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1932 to an Orthodox Jewish family. His father, Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga Kahane, was born in Safed, Palestine, in 1905, and studied in yeshivas in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Meir Kahane received rabbinical ordination from the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn. Kahane also organized and launched public demonstrations in the U.S. against the Soviet Union's policy of persecuting Zionist activists and curbing Jewish emigration to Israel.
From 1965 to 1968, under the name Michael King, Kahane worked for the FBI as an undercover agent inside the John Birch Society. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in 1968, purportedly in response to threats made by the Black Panthers movement.
Kahane was also in contact with Joe Colombo, head of the Colombo mafia family, and was with him, in 1971, when Colombo was shot and killed by Gallo family assassins. Kahane confirmed his connections to these organized crime networks in an interview he gave to Playboy magazine in 1972.
In the 1960s, Kahane was an editor of the largest Anglo-Jewish weekly, Brooklyn's The Jewish Press and was a regular correspondent for that paper until his death.
Ideology
Kahane's ideology has been called Kahanism. Kahane adhered to the belief that Jewish law contains directions for how to run a Jewish state, and that these directions are directly applicable at the present day. Kahane claimed that no description of Palestinian Arabs as a distinct nationality can be found in any pre-20th century text and he frequently challenged his detractors to prove otherwise. Thus, Kahane proposed the forcible deportation of all Arabs from all lands controlled by the Israeli government.
Kahane also believed that Israel should limit citizenship to Jews and adopt Jewish law (Halakha) in public life. Supporters say Kahane was protecting Torah values and the integrity of the Jewish nation. Detractors consider Kahane's views bigoted.
Israel
In the U.S., the JDL engaged in terrorist activities, including the bombing of several buildings and the harassment of political and intellectual opponents of the JDL. Consequently, police pressure began to build upon Kahane, and, in 1971, he emigrated to Israel (known as "making aliyah").
Kahane quickly moved to establish the Kach party. In 1980, Kahane stood unsuccessfully for election to the Knesset. Later, in 1980, Kahane served six months in prison following an administrative detention order against him, the details of which have not been disclosed publicly. 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."
In 1984, Kahane was elected to the Knesset (Israel's parliament). 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.
Kahane refused to take the oath of office for the Knesset and insisted that a verse from Psalms be added to it, to indicate that when the national laws and Torah conflict, Torah law should have supremacy over the laws of the Knesset.
Kahane's legislative proposals focused on revoking the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews and banning Jewish-Gentile marriages or sexual relations, based on the code of Jewish law compiled by Maimonides, the Mishne Torah. In spite of the fact that Kahane's proposals were based on Torah law, none of Israel's religious parties or prominent rabbis publicly supported Kach legislation.
As his political career progressed, Kahane became increasingly isolated in the Knesset. Kahane's legislative proposals and motions of no-confidence against the government were ignored or rejected by his fellow Knesset members. Kahane often called the 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 (Yeshivat Haraayon Hayehudi) with funding from American 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. Kahane asserted that polls showed the Kach Party was about to become the third largest party in Israel and this was the true reason that the party was banned.
Assassination
In 1990, after concluding a speech in a Manhattan, New York hotel, Kahane was assassinated by El Sayyid Nosair.
Political legacy
Following Kahane's death, no charismatic leader emerged to replace him and Kahane's radical ideology declined in popularity among Israelis. However, 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 massacre in the Ibrahim Mosque by Kach supporter Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli government declared both parties to be illegal terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department also added Kach and Kahane Chai to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
In late 2000, as 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".
In 2005, an Israeli politician using the pseudonym, Obadiah Shoher, assembled a group of followers and claimed to be the true followers of Kahane. The group was named Samson Blinded, after Shoher's book, a compendium of Kahane's ideas entitled, Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict.
Son murdered
On December 31, 2000, Meir Kahane's son, Kahane Chai leader rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, and his wife Talya were shot and murdered in their van as they were driving with their children from Jerusalem to their home in the Israeli settlement of Kfar Tapuach. 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? (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).
For supplementary information and insights:
Kahane et le Kahanisme" by Shulamith Bar Itzhak. Meir Kahane: Ideologue, Hero, Thinker by Daniel Breslauer. The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, from FBI Informant to Knesset Member by Robert I. Israel’s Ayatollahs: Meir Kahane and the Far Right in Israel by Raphael Mergui and Phillipe Simonnot. Kach and Meir Kahane: The Emergence of Jewish Quasi-Fascism by Ehud Sprinzak.
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