No, Kahane Wasn’t Right
Invoking the memory of a corrupt exploitive extremist to save Israel is myopic
“If you want my opinion, I agree with everything Kahane said. Everything he predicted came true. He just should have said it in a nicer way.” — a useful idiot
Kahane offers an attractive vision in the present political climate, where those who can fold complex issues into simple platitudes and mutual exclusivities get the most follows and likes and attention, and win the widest public appeal. Resist. Keep reading and I will give you many reasons to resist the seduction Kahane offers to the naive well meaning consumer of information and to the useful western idiot.
NB: Shirion Collective is a surveillance network pretending to fight antisemitism. Daniel Linden was exposed as the influencer behind the online organization in a Guardian exposé. It’s a bit disturbing to see support for Kahane in someone who is so illiberal he doxxes and harasses people for a stupid and asshole FREE EXPRESSION AND ENTIRELY LEGAL BEHAVIOUR of tearing a piece of paper from a public place, in the name of fighting antisemitism. This is tantamount to stalking. It is not okay, it is not Zionism and it is not Judaic. People are allowed to rip up posters of Israeli hostages, like they are allowed to burn a book containing the Quran — this is free expression and we value it here in North America, it is integral to our civil infrastructure and moral integrity as a society.
So, reader. It’s like this.
I can agree with Kahane that a secular, ie. non religious Jew is a racist if they want their kid to marry a Jew, not to fulfill a religious obligation simply to fulfill an racial identity requirement, and I can say Kahane was wrong in his overall ideological worldview. I agree with Trump that Trudeau is an idiot and woketards are ridiculous and the media lies about stuff. I still think Trump is Mango Mussolini and a repugnant choice for the White House and disavow his ideological approach. It’s not complicated.
Kahane was wrong.
Who was Meir Kahane?
An American Jew born to an established rabbinic Orthodox Jewish family in 1930s Brooklyn, he received rabbinical ordination at the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn and studied law and international relations.
In the 1950s, during the McCarthy Communist Scare, Kahane worked for the FBI infiltrating anti communist groups, spying on their activities and internal operations.
Kahane worked with his friend Joseph Churba under a gentile identity Michael King to counter the widespread opposition to the war in Vietnam.
Kahane married Libby Blum in 1956.
Kahane accepted a position at Howard Beach 1958, a synagogue of largely non observant Jews, and he forced changes upon the congregation, they amounted to forced orthodoxy, including separate prayer areas for men and women, and the board’s resignation from certain national organizations. His contract was not renewed.
In 1966 Kahane was engaged to marry Gloria Jean D'Argenio (stage name Estelle Donna Evans) under the alias Michael King. A few days before the wedding Kahane sent D’Argenio a letter breaking up with her, telling her he couldn’t marry her because he had a family. D’Agenio threw herself over the Queensborough Bridge and died of her injuries a day or two later. She was pregnant with Kahane’s baby. Kahane’s widow denies the allegation for lack of evidence, despite admitting Michael King was one of her late husband’s aliases and despite corroborating evidence for the affair.
In 1968, Kahane founded the JDL, Jewish Defense League. Kahane established a foundation called Estelle Donna Evans Foundation, claiming the late D’Argenio, stage name Estelle Donna Evans, was a former employee who died of cancer and her family endowed a foundation in her honour. Kahane claimed to have honoured her memory by raising money for starving Israeli children.
Throughout the land of Israel, there are children who need help. Some are orphans, others from broken homes … All these children need two things very much. One is money to better their own and their families’ lives. The other is love and the knowledge that others care about them. —1969 flyer for the Estelle Donna Evans Foundation
In 1971 Kahane established a brotherhood in an historic agreement with Dr. Thomas Matthew, leader of NEGRO, and sponsor of the meeting. Matthews, a grand larcenist who served a 3 year prison sentence for 121 counts of grand larceny and conspiracy, which accused him of taking $200,000 of Medicaid funds from the Interfaith Hospital and diverting it to other projects of his.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s the JDL members perpetrated many bombings, shootings, beatings, and terror attacks. From 1980 to 1986 the FBI documented 17 bombings attributable to the JDL.
In 1971 Kahane was arrested and charged with several counts including including bombing, kidnapping, assassination plots. He violated probation twice on his 1971 conviction for conspiring to manufacture explosives and he received a sentence of one year. In an 1984 press interview Kahane claimed responsibility for bombing the Soviet mission in New York, the Russian cultural mission here Washington DC in 1971 in the Soviet trade offices.
In 1971 he moved to Israel, where he immediately set to work inciting anti Palestinian bigotry by making lists of Palestinian Israeli willing to leave Israel for compensation. He began calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel.
In 1972 JDL distributed leaflets calling for the arrest of the mayor of Hebron for the 1929 massacre.
In 1971 he founded Kach. Kach remains a designated terrorist entity to this day. Kahane ran for election to the Knesset in 1973 and 1977.
In 1980, Kahane was arrested for the 62nd time since his emigration to Israel, this time for planning armed attacks against Palestinians in response for killing Jews. He spent 6 months in Ramla prison, where he wrote a book.
In 1981 Kahane ran for election and lost and ran again in 1984, when he won a seat in the Knesset. The central election committee banned his party. The Supreme Court overturned the ban, suggesting Knesset pass legislation. The Knesset responded in 1985 by adding a prohibition (paragraph 7a) against the registration of parties that explicitly or implicitly incite racism.
Kahane promoted legislation that called for the transfer of Arabs out of Israel and calked for a ban between Jewish—Gentile marriages. Kahane lamented Hellenism infiltrating Jewish and Israeli though.
When the US Government tried to revoke Kahane’s citizenship the Knesset forced him to choose between US citizenship and Knesset membership. After being barred from Israeli politics Kahane tried unsuccessfully to get back his citizenship. He was free to travel to the US.
El Sayyid Nosair assassinated Kahane in Brooklyn in 1990. Nosair would go on to terrorist involvement in the 1993 attack on the WTC. In retaliation for the murder of Meir Kahane, his Israeli followers murdered two elderly Palestinian men.
Kahane has inspired many right wing extremists, who have committed many terrorist attacks and killings, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Itamar Ben Gvir is an admirer of Kahane.
Baruch Goldstein was a huge Kahane fanboy. Thirty one years ago today—it was the dawn of Purim Festival in fact—Goldstein walked into The Cave of the Patriarchs which served as a mosque, in Hebron city, Judea Samaria, he wore an Israeli military uniform and opened fire, killing 29 Arabs and injuring 125 more, whilst they prayed. Witnesses report Goldstein tried to create as much carnage as possible. Goldstein worked as a doctor and reportedly refused to treat Arabs or non Jews, even for payment. He is revered by right wing Israelis, even 30 years after the massacre he perpetrated.
Kahane was not right. He inspired terror and hate and he gave birth to an entire ugly legacy of depravity wrapped in the Torah and religion. Hatred wrapped in religion is evil, an anathema to g-d and universal goodness.
No, Kahane was not right. Stop saying that, even as a joke.
I’m not laughing at this joke.