54 Facts About Meir Kahane

Meir David HaKohen Kahane was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset before being convicted of acts of terrorism.

Meir Kahane supported violence against those he regarded as enemies of the Jewish people, and called for immediate Jewish mass migration to Israel to avoid a potential "Holocaust" in the United States, popularizing the slogan Never Again through a book of the same name.

In 1968, Kahane was one of the co-founders of the JDL in the United States.

Meir Kahane was boycotted across the aisles of the Knesset, and would often speak in front of an empty chamber.

The Central Elections Committee tried to ban Meir Kahane from running in the 1984 elections, but this ban was overturned by the Supreme Court because there was no law to support it.

Meir Kahane publicized his Kahanism ideology through published works, weekly articles, speeches, debates on college campuses and in synagogs throughout the United States, and appearances on various televised programs and radio shows.

Meir Kahane was assassinated in a New York City hotel by an Egyptian-born US citizen in November 1990.

Meir Kahane's legacy continues to influence militant and far-right political groups active today in Israel.

Meir Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Orthodox Jewish family.

Meir Kahane was a member of an established rabbinic family, including his father, who was head of the Flatbush Board of Rabbis.

An uncle of Meir Kahane's was killed in Safed during the 1929 Arab riots.

Meir Kahane joined the Betar youth wing of Revisionist Zionism.

Meir Kahane was active in protests against Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary who maintained restrictions on the immigration of Jews, even Holocaust survivors, to Palestine after the end of the Second World War.

In 1947, Meir Kahane was arrested for throwing eggs and tomatoes at Bevin, who was disembarking at Pier 84 on a visit to New York.

Meir Kahane received his rabbinical ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where he was especially admired by the head Rabbi Abraham Kalmanowitz.

Meir Kahane was fully conversant in the Tanakh, the Talmud, the Midrash and Jewish law.

In 1956, Meir Kahane married Libby Blum, with whom he had four children: Tzipporah, Tova, Baruch, and Binyamin.

Meir Kahane sent a letter to D'Argenio in which he unilaterally ended their relationship.

In 2008, Meir Kahane's wife dismissed the incident as lacking proof.

Meir Kahane claimed D'Argenio had been his former secretary in his failed consulting operation, had died of cancer, and that her "well-to-do" family had endowed the foundation.

In 1958, Meir Kahane became the rabbi of the Howard Beach Jewish Center in Queens, New York City.

At the Jewish Center, Meir Kahane influenced many of the synagog's youngsters to adopt a more observant lifestyle, which often troubled parents.

Meir Kahane used the pen name David Sinai, and the pseudonyms Michael King, David Borac, and Martin Keene.

At some time in the late 1950s, Meir Kahane assumed the persona of a Gentile, along with the pseudonym Michael King.

Meir Kahane chose to fight for Jewish rights, and was willing to use extreme measures.

Meir Kahane even attempted to acquire and grow biological weapons to use on a Soviet military installation.

Meir Kahane began using the phrase "Never again" and conceived the Jewish Star and fist insignia, a symbol resembling that of the Black Panther Party.

However, Meir Kahane himself opposed the Black Panthers, claiming they had supported anti-Jewish riots in Massachusetts and had left-wing views.

Meir Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in New York City in 1968.

The Anti-Defamation League claimed that Meir Kahane "preached a radical form of Jewish nationalism which reflected racism, violence and political extremism" that was replicated by Irv Rubin, the JDL's successor to Meir Kahane.

In 1971, Meir Kahane was sentenced to a suspended five-year prison sentence and fined $5,000 for conspiring to manufacture explosives.

In 1975, Meir Kahane was arrested for leading the attack on the Soviet United Nations mission and injuring two officers, but he was released after being given summonses for disorderly conduct.

Later the same year, Meir Kahane was accused of conspiring to kidnap a Soviet diplomat, bomb the Iraqi embassy in Washington, and ship arms abroad from Israel.

Meir Kahane was convicted of violating his probation for the 1971 bombing conviction and was sentenced to one year in prison.

Meir Kahane later began gathering lists of Arab citizens of the State of Israel who were willing to emigrate for compensation, and eventually, he initiated protests that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from that country, and Israeli-occupied territories.

In 1980, Meir Kahane was arrested for the 62nd time since his emigration, and he was jailed for six months after a detention order that was based on allegations of him planning armed attacks against Palestinians in response to the killings of Jewish settlers.

Meir Kahane was held in prison in Ramla, where he wrote the book They Must Go.

Meir Kahane refused to take the standard oath of office and insisted on adding a Biblical verse from Psalms to indicate that national laws were overruled by the Torah if they conflict.

In 1987, Meir Kahane opened a yeshiva with funding from US supporters to teach "the Authentic Jewish Idea".

Meir Kahane was thus the first candidate in Israel to be barred from election for racism.

In November 1990, Meir Kahane gave a speech to an audience of mostly Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, where he warned American Jews to emigrate to Israel before it was "too late".

Meir Kahane was initially charged and acquitted of the murder.

Meir Kahane was sentenced to life imprisonment and later made a confession to federal agents.

Meir Kahane was eulogized by supporters in both the US and in Israel, including Rabbi Moshe Tendler and the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, who spoke of how little the people understood of Kahane's true value.

Meir Kahane argued that there was a glory in Jewish destiny, which came through the observance of the Torah and halakha.

In some of his writings, Meir Kahane argued that Israel should never start a war for territory but that if a war were launched against Israel, Biblical territory should be annexed.

However, the idea of transferring populations, attributed mainly to Meir Kahane, was incorporated into the political platform of several parties in Israel, such as Moledet and Yisrael Beiteinu.

Meir Kahane stood again in the 2013 elections as the second candidate on the list of Otzma LeYisrael, but the party failed to pass the minimum threshold.

In 2015, Kahane's grandson, Meir Ettinger, was detained by Israeli law enforcement.

Meir Kahane was the alleged leader of the radical Jewish group "The Revolt".

In 2016, Libby Meir Kahane claimed that modern Jewish extremists in Israel do not follow the ideology of her late husband.

Meir Kahane justified that claim by arguing that, unlike modern Jewish extremists, Rabbi Kahane had a more mature approach that did not encourage illegal activities.

Attempts to ban the Strong Israel and Balad political parties by using the Meir Kahane precedent were overturned.

In 2017, The Forward reported that some of Meir Kahane's followers were aligning themselves with white nationalists and the alt-right.