Meir Kahane was one of the most illustrious Jewish figures of the twentieth century.

Meir Kahane was one of the most illustrious Jewish figures of the twentieth century. A follower of Zhabotinsky, Meir Kahane started his political career in childhood by leading a march to protest the anti-Semitic policies of a British politician, Ernest Bevin.
Meir Kahane received rabbinical ordination from the famed Mir Yeshiva in New York. Kahane became prominent in the United States after he founded the Jewish Defense League, which protected elderly Jews and American Jewish institutions against anti-Semites. In his pursuit of Jewish interests, Meir Kahane had no qualms about cooperating with anyone, from Italian mobsters to the FBI; for the rabbi, the overarching goal of Jewish safety trumped moral concerns. Rabbi Kahane had no problem using firearms and explosives to protect his fellow Jews.
After substantially curbing anti-Semitic violence, Kahane’s JDL broke the spell of silence over the fate of Soviet Jewry. American Jewish leaders, given to “quiet diplomacy”—so quiet as to make it undetectable—immediately condemned Meir Kahane’s activism. By a campaign of bombings against Soviet offices in America, Kahane threatened the US-USSR detente and brought the topic of oppressed Soviet Jewry to the front pages of American media. The Russians were forced to negotiate. Thanks to Rabbi Kahane, tens of thousands of Russian Jews were allowed to leave the USSR. The American Jewish establishment took over Meir Kahane’s campaign, and the floodgates opened with a million-strong aliyah.
Rabbi Meir Kahane moved to Israel where he campaigned under the slogan, “I’m saying what you’re thinking.” Kahane’s Kach (Thus!) party advocated population exchanges with Arab countries, annexing Judea and Samaria, and introducing basic elements of Judaism as Israeli laws. After a series of electoral defeats, Meir Kahane entered the Knesset. The leftist Israeli media went berserk with a Kahane-bashing campaign. Likud and Shas joined the anti-Kahane efforts because their voters massively went over to Rabbi Meir. Polls predicted for Kahane’s party an increase from one to thirteen seats. At that point, the Israeli Supreme Court banned Kach for racism despite the fact that Israeli law explicitly removes religious arguments from the definition of racism, and Rabbi Kahane’s every statement was firmly rooted in Jewish law, halacha.
Undeterred, Meir Kahane led a referendum to transfer Israeli Arabs to a state of their own, annex Judea and Samaria, and ban anti-Jewish parties. Maariv published a report that Mossad planned the assassination of Rabbi Kahane. He also received similar threats from Shabak. In 1990, Meir Kahane was assassinated during a speech in New York. The Arab accused of murdering Rabbi Kahane was acquitted, as the weapon lacked his fingerprints; the real assassin remains unknown.
After Meir Kahane’s death, the Kach Party was banned over the Baruch Goldstein incident. The first open Kahanist, Michael Ben Ari, has entered the Knesset in the 2009 elections, and renegade Kahanist Avigdor Lieberman became the Israeli parliament’s permanent feature. Several splinter groups claim to be guided by Meir Kahane’s principles; the most active among them is Baruch Marzel’s Jewish National Front party.
Meir Kahane left us several books, thousands of articles, and a few video lectures. Israeli Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu praised Rabbi Kahane’s seminal work The Jewish Idea as an outstanding achievement in religious scholarship. In the book, Rabbi Kahane explained the contemporary political relevance of traditional Jewish concepts.
Learning Rabbi Meir Kahane’s heritage is indispensable for any person interested in Jewish or Israeli matters.

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