Rabbi Meir Kahane was born in New York City in 1932. He studied at the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn, receiving rabbinic ordination in 1956. That same year, he completed his law studies at New York Law School, and he subsequently received a master s degree in international law from New York University. After serving as a congregational rabbi, he founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968 in order to combat the rise in antisemitism. Concerned about the alienation and assimilation of Jewish youth, Rabbi Kahane spent two decades touring American college campuses, exhorting Jewish students to learn about Judaism, make aliya to Israel and stand up proudly as Jews. In 1970, he spearheaded a campaign of Jewish activism that led to the emigration of tens of thousands of oppressed Jews from the Soviet Union. He entered the political arena in Israel when he made aliya in 1971 and was a member of the Israeli Knesset from 1984 to 1988. He wrote several best-selling books, including Never Again!, Why Be Jewish? and The Story of the Jewish Defense League. His widely-read weekly columns appeared in The Jewish Press from 1961 to 1990.
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A work of scholarship that attempts to contextualize his actions both personally and historically, and let readers draw their own conclusion. You try to show the person, the husband and father, behind his bitterly controversial political persona.
It will be a major addition to our knowledge of a very turbulent period in Jewish history. --Dr. Peter Eisenstad
The book is rich with anecdotes from Rabbi Kahane's notes, speeches, and articles that appeared in the Jewish Press over many years. In addition to a few stints in prison in Israel, he also spent almost a full year in prison in the U.S. for crimes associated with protests that he organized and in which he participated in New York and Washington, DC. Even if you do not read the book in its entirety, it's an important book to have in your library or even just to read a few chapters from time to time. --Larry Gordon, 5 Towns Jewish Times
This is an extraordinary tale of a man with a vision and a mission, whose life's journey was passionately directed to promoting Torah, Jewish pride and power, and the Zionist dream. Rabbi Meir Kahane, teacher, writer, and activist, is portrayed in exceptional detail and vividness, a kind of day-to-day serial drama. His boundless dedication to the Jewish people, skillfully animated and painstakingly documented in this comprehensive biography, can serve as an inspiration for Jewish youth today, as he did in his lifetime. A major figure in modern Jewish history, Meir Kahane can now be judiciously assessed and appreciated through this new and gripping volume. --Dr. Mordechai Nisan
A work of scholarship that attempts to contextualize his actions both personally and historically, and let readers draw their own conclusion.… You try to show the person, the husband and father, behind his bitterly controversial political persona.
It will be a major addition to our knowledge of a very turbulent period in Jewish history. --Dr. Peter Eisenstadt
The book is rich with anecdotes from Rabbi Kahane s notes, speeches, and articles that appeared in the Jewish Press over many years. In addition to a few stints in prison in Israel, he also spent almost a full year in prison in the U.S. for crimes associated with protests that he organized and in which he participated in New York and Washington, DC. Even if you do not read the book in its entirety, it s an important book to have in your library or even just to read a few chapters from time to time. --Larry Gordon, 5 Towns Jewish Times
The book is rich with anecdotes from Rabbi Kahane s notes, speeches, and articles that appeared in the Jewish Press over many years. In addition to a few stints in prison in Israel, he also spent almost a full year in prison in the U.S. for crimes associated with protests that he organized and in which he participated in New York and Washington, DC. Even if you do not read the book in its entirety, it s an important book to have in your library or even just to read a few chapters from time to time. --Larry Gordon, 5 Towns Jewish Times
A work of scholarship that attempts to contextualize his actions both personally and historically, and let readers draw their own conclusion.… You try to show the person, the husband and father, behind his bitterly controversial political persona.
It will be a major addition to our knowledge of a very turbulent period in Jewish history. --Dr. Peter Eisenstadt
It will be a major addition to our knowledge of a very turbulent period in Jewish history. --Dr. Peter Eisenstad
The book is rich with anecdotes from Rabbi Kahane's notes, speeches, and articles that appeared in the Jewish Press over many years. In addition to a few stints in prison in Israel, he also spent almost a full year in prison in the U.S. for crimes associated with protests that he organized and in which he participated in New York and Washington, DC. Even if you do not read the book in its entirety, it's an important book to have in your library or even just to read a few chapters from time to time. --Larry Gordon, 5 Towns Jewish Times
This is an extraordinary tale of a man with a vision and a mission, whose life's journey was passionately directed to promoting Torah, Jewish pride and power, and the Zionist dream. Rabbi Meir Kahane, teacher, writer, and activist, is portrayed in exceptional detail and vividness, a kind of day-to-day serial drama. His boundless dedication to the Jewish people, skillfully animated and painstakingly documented in this comprehensive biography, can serve as an inspiration for Jewish youth today, as he did in his lifetime. A major figure in modern Jewish history, Meir Kahane can now be judiciously assessed and appreciated through this new and gripping volume. --Dr. Mordechai Nisan
A work of scholarship that attempts to contextualize his actions both personally and historically, and let readers draw their own conclusion.… You try to show the person, the husband and father, behind his bitterly controversial political persona.
It will be a major addition to our knowledge of a very turbulent period in Jewish history. --Dr. Peter Eisenstadt
The book is rich with anecdotes from Rabbi Kahane s notes, speeches, and articles that appeared in the Jewish Press over many years. In addition to a few stints in prison in Israel, he also spent almost a full year in prison in the U.S. for crimes associated with protests that he organized and in which he participated in New York and Washington, DC. Even if you do not read the book in its entirety, it s an important book to have in your library or even just to read a few chapters from time to time. --Larry Gordon, 5 Towns Jewish Times
The book is rich with anecdotes from Rabbi Kahane s notes, speeches, and articles that appeared in the Jewish Press over many years. In addition to a few stints in prison in Israel, he also spent almost a full year in prison in the U.S. for crimes associated with protests that he organized and in which he participated in New York and Washington, DC. Even if you do not read the book in its entirety, it s an important book to have in your library or even just to read a few chapters from time to time. --Larry Gordon, 5 Towns Jewish Times
A work of scholarship that attempts to contextualize his actions both personally and historically, and let readers draw their own conclusion.… You try to show the person, the husband and father, behind his bitterly controversial political persona.
It will be a major addition to our knowledge of a very turbulent period in Jewish history. --Dr. Peter Eisenstadt
About the Author
Libby Kahane was married to Rabbi Meir Kahane from 1956 until his untimely death in 1990. Together with their four children, they moved to Israel in 1971, where Libby was employed as a reference librarian at the National Library in Jerusalem for twenty-seven years. Her research experience combines with her first-hand knowledge of events to present a comprehensive survey of Rabbi Kahane's ideology and political strategy, beginning with the childhood experiences that shaped him. She is a proud grandmother and great-grandmother.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A man for all seasons,
By Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought - Volume One: 1932-1975 (Hardcover)
A detailed, fascinating, fast-paced, vivid and topical biography of one of the great visionaries of modern Jewish life, Rabbi Meir Kahane.Reveals of his boundless dedication to Judaism, the welfare and safety of the Jewish people, the Jewish State and the Land of Israel. Written by his widow, Libby Kahane, about the husband, father, teacher, leader and activist, it is about both the man and his powerful ideas This biographical tome takes us through his childhood and education, the leadership qualities and love for Judaism and Zionism, that he showed from so early on. It shows a deeply human man and his struggles on behalf of persecuted Jewry in the then Soviet Union, his efforts to protect vulnerable Jews in the inner cities of America from violent elements including the anti-Semitic Black Panthers and their thuggish followers, and his battle against Israel hatred of university campuses. The period from 1968 until the early 70s was the period when the Jewish Defense League, created by Meir Kahane, inspired the dedication of thousands of young Jews in the USA, Israel and around the world. Rabbi Kahane migrated to Israel in the early 70s where he campaigned for a strong Jewish State that would react harshly to crush ruthless Arab terror, and urged buying up Arab land and paying Israel's hostile Arab population to leave the Land of Israel and settle elsewhere. Kahane would not take any of the persecutions of or dangers to the Jewish people and Israel passively. He was imprisoned many times for his civil disobedience and militant campaign against the Soviet Union from the 1960s, including harassment by the JDL of Soviet diplomats and officials. when the three million when thousands were being imprisoned and some even executed for practicing their faith and identifying with the Jewish State. As he wrote in 1963: "They are murdering the faith of three million Jews in the Soviet Union today and we shut our ears to the cries of our brethren... They outdo the Nazi who seek our bodies and seek to rob us of our souls" Rabbi Kahane railed against the hypocrisy of the liberal Jewish establishment and Jewish leftists who ignored the plight of Raiza Palatnik a Jewess imprisoned and tortured by the Soviets in the concentration camp of Dnieprodersjinsk exclaiming how "Her name is Raiza Palatnik and the world hardly knows of her. If her name had been Angela Davis, we would have seen masses of humanity- a great part of which would have been undoubtedly Jewish- prepared to mount the barricades on her behalf. but Raiza is not Angela Davis, she is only Jewish, and the Jewish leftists have no time for her, particularly since she is a Zionist. In response to the PLO and PFLP terror attacks such as the killing of 18 Jewish men, women and children in apartment blocks in Kiryat Shmona on April 11,1974 when Arab terrorists broke into apartment after apartments, shooting and throwing bombs at the inhabitants, and the Maalot massacre of 24 teenage children by terrorists infiltrating from Lebanon in the town of Maalot, the JDL reacted. JDL supporters assaulted PLO representatives in the USA and Kahane promised to set up a task force to retaliate against the Arab countries that sponsored the terror. Kahane was also dedicated to Jewish education, the strengthening of Jewish pride and identity and was fiercely opposed to assimilation and intermarriage. In a letter to his children he taught them that "without mesirut negesh (self-sacrifice) the Jew is not a complete Jew and can never fully reach kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-D's name" Rabbi Kahane raised Jewish consciousness and Jewish activism and his announcements encapsulate the questions and answers of the Jewish people such as "Why do Jews always wait until the knife is on their throats?" and 'Daddy where you when they tried to destroy Israel" He also mobilized Christian support for Israel through patronage of organization called Christians for Zion reminding Christians that "THE REAL CHRISTIAN INTEREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THE REALIZATION OF G-D'S FINAL REDEMPTION, THROUGH TOTAL SUPPORT OF THE JEWISH STATE OF ZION" based on the word of the Bible that G-D would bless those that Israel and curse those that curse Israel. He was a truly a man for all seasons. He was not a racist as so often charged by his enemies and several times Rabbi Kahane took a Black man, Chakwal M Cragg, an Ethiopian Jew, to synagogue and hosted him for Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath). Rabbi Kahane urged his children in another letter to "Love all. With tenderness look upon all that you see: the frail flower, the frightened dog, the desperate man. Love them all and let this love lift you to the heights of holiness". A definitive biography and incite into the thoughts and ideas of a great Jewish leader of his time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A New Slant,
By
This review is from: Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought - Volume One: 1932-1975 (Hardcover)
This highly interesting volume covers Rabbi Kahane's youth and his early years up to the time he founded the Jewish Defense League when he was 33. It also covers the peak period of the Jewish Defense League, 1969-1971, but from an entirely different slant from his book The Story of the Jewish Defense League. It is fascinating to read about how he wrote and found publishers for Story of the JDL as well as his other early books: The Jewish Stake in Vietnam, Never Again, Time to Go Home, Our Challenge and Writings.This volume describes Rabbi Kahane's little known early years in Israel. It is engrossing to read about his plan for encouraging Arab emigration from Israel and his arguments for quelling Arab terror acts through counterterrorism. All in all, this is a important biographical study of Meir Kahane and of his philosophy.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Objective and Gripping,
By
This review is from: Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought - Volume One: 1932-1975 (Hardcover)
Objective and GrippingThis is a gripping biography of Rabbi Kahane written by his wife Libby Kahane. Contrary to expectations this is not a hagiography, but rather an objective exposition of his activities. A lively description of his childhood and teen years show the development of his personality and ideas. Rabbi Kahane's actions are explained in his own words because Mrs. Kahane method is to quote from his writings to give the reasoning behind the various demonstrations he led. This is an academic, scholarly work with the facts painstakingly footnoted. I recommend this highly to anyone who wishes to learn about this dynamic individual. Volume one covers his activies as founder and leader of the Jewish Defense League in the United States and as well as his ventures into Israeli public life.prior to 1975. In her afterword, Mrs. Kahane informs the reader that volume two is in the works.
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