From Barbara Ginsberg’s Desktop

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990

Volume 5    1985-1988

“Beyond Words” is a newly-published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.

“Beyond Words” also includes a number of extra features:

Chronology of Rabbi Kahane’s life.

Index of articles by subject, title, and Torah sources.

If you are interested in buying this new collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings, write to Levi Chazan at: Levi1@hotmail.com

MADNESS AND DESECRATION

Let me tell you what is even worse than a Jewish mother burned alive in a car after a firebomb was thrown through the window.  Let me tell you what is worse than this attack near the Arab town of Kalkilya that also tragically burned 80% of the bodies of her children Tal and Adi, five and eight years old respectively.  Let me tell you of Arab cruelty and Jewish madness – the two partners in the murder of Ofra Moses and the cruel disfiguring of her small children – so that you will be furious enough to do something and prevent the deaths and mutilations of other Ofra  Moseses and other Jewish children.

In the years following the creation of the State of Israel, the town of Kalkilya was one of the worst vipers’ nests of Arab terror.  Lying less than five minutes from the Jewish city of Kfar Saba, Kalkilya became a symbol to the Jews of Arab terror and murder and, for years, Jews dreamed of the day when they would take vengeance on the town and its Arab inhabitants.

And then the miracle occurred:  the Six-Day War erupted and Jewish soldiers drove across the Green Line into Samaria – into Kalkilya; the entire Arab population fled.  Knowing what they deserved, fearing that they would get precisely that from the long suffering Jews, they fled in terror towards the Jordan River, hoping to cross into Jordan.  The town was deserted, free of the terrorists and the terror they carried into Israel.  The Jews of Kfar Saba and the surrounding area were ecstatic as they poured into the deserted Kalkilya, walking freely and securely for the first time.

And then.  And then, there occurred a thing so incredible that no normal person could ever hope to believe it.  Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense and hero to the UJA-Israel Bonds-Hadassah jet set, issued orders to the Israeli paratroopers to rush to the Jordan and bring the Arabs of Kalkilya back.

Yes, I know that the words are almost inexplicable, let along believable.  Bring them back? Bring back Arabs who fled?  Bring back the vipers to their nest?  How is that possible?  It is not possible?  It could never have happened!  Was Dayan mad?

No, he was not mad; not in the clinical sense.  But yes, it did happened.  Because as Dayan himself said: “G-d forbid that the world should think that there is another wave of refugees.” No, he was not “mad.”  Merely the product of a gentilized lack of any faith and trust in the G-d and destiny of Israel.  The same Dayan who objected to the capture of the Golan Heights in 1967 because there were Soviet advisors there and this would “surely” bring in the Soviets.  And the tragedy of madness and desecration as Israeli troops forced the Arabs of Kalkilya to return.

They did and prospered.  They did and turned the area once again into a vipers’ nest.  Jews fear to ride through the area where a new breed and generation of Arab has arisen, thanks to the insanity of Dayanism.  And Ofra Moses is dead and her children disfigured and Jews frustrated and frightened and appalled.  We are a people that took the miracle of 1967 and threw it away.

We are afflicted by a sickness of soul that is the very essence of that ghetto and Galut that the Hellenists of Dayanism so contemptuously attacked.  But they the secular Zionists who fear world opinion and who question their real right to be in Judea and Samaria, are the most intense of the ghetto-ites, the most extreme of the Galut Jews.

Kalkilya must be wiped off the face of the earth as a lesson, the clearest and most brutal lesson, to the Arabs.  Its inhabitants must be thrown across the river into Jordan and every building leveled, as a permanent example of what will be done to every other Arab town in whose region terror strikes at Jews.  And that, of course, is only a prelude to the real Jewish, Zionist and logical step – the removal of all our enemies from Eretz Yisrael.

A government that is incapable of or unwilling to take any and all actions to protect the lives of its people loses all legitimacy or right to exist as legal authority.  The only right that any government has to regulate and restrict and rule over human beings rests on the premise that individuals give up their totality of freedom in exchange for the protection and security of life and property that the government promises them.  When governments cannot or is not prepared to fulfill its share of the covenant, it loses all right to rule over the lives of citizens.  It becomes illegitimate, a bandit authoritarian.

The government of Israel stands, today, at that political red line.  Years of failure – either through helplessness or haplessness, or worse, deliberate political decision – contributed to the deaths of hundreds of Jews and the wounding of thousands of others in terror attacks that could have been prevented by the removal of the Arabs from the land, or at the very least, by a powerful fist that would have struck terror into the hearts of the Arabs – people who are, at least in heart and in mind, all terrorists.

Written May 1987

“…Only a state with majority of Jews will ensure that, never again, will we enjoy such dubious benefits as Crusades and Inquisitions and pogroms and Holocausts – small and very large.”- Rabbi Meir Kahane

Click here for flyer for first and second daytime events
Click here for flyer for evening event

1. Ocean Avenue Jewish Center
2600 Ocean Avenue (between Avenue U and V) Brooklyn, NY 11229
12:30 P.M. Sharp (doors open 12:00)

2.      Ground Zero (Park Place and W. Broadway subway: 2,3,A,C and other lines)Manhattan NY
(Transportation provided from the first event – suggested donation for bus $25)
3:30 P.M.

3.      West Side Institutional Synagogue
120 West 76th Street (between Columbus and Amsterdam Ave.)  New York, NY
7:00 PM

Guest Speakers

a.       Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn, Rabbi West Side Synagogue;

b.      Helen Freedman, Executive Director, Americans For A Safe Israel

c.       Barry Farber Distinguished Talk Radio Host
Assemblyman Dov Hikind

d.      Barry Slotnick, Esq. Defense Counsel for Rabbi Kahane

Musical Interlude
Compsed by Cecelia Margules and Rami Yadid; Michael Elias—Vocalist; Michael Fitzpatrick — Cello; Chaim Cotton — Keyboard; Peter David—Backup Vocal
For information, please contact:
Cecelia Margules—(718) 339 8483
West Side Synagogue—(212) 877 7652

Chairmen: Shannon Taylor and Cecelia Margules

About Rabbi Meir Kahane

Rabbi Meir David Kahane was born on August 1, 1932 in Brooklyn, New York to a famous Orthodox Jewish family. His father, was a close friends of the famous Zionist Zeev Jabotinsky who was to later influencial Rabbi Meir Kahane. As a teenager Kahane joined Betar, a Zionist youth movement founded by Jabotinsky. As a member of Betar, Kahane personally led protests against Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary who opposed the creation is Israel.

Following the Holocaust, Kahane coined the phrase “Never Again”. This means, never again will Jews stand by watch their brothers be murdered.

In 1960, Kahane became an ordained Rabbi from the world famous Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn, NY and then he earned a degree in international law at New York University. During the mid-60′s, Kahane worked as a teacher and was one of the editors of the Jewish Press, which was the biggest English speaking Jewish newspaper in the world.

In 1968, Kahane created the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in America and the Kach party in Israel. The JDL’s objectives were to protect Jews and their property from anti-Semitism. Much of the JDL’s history was during the early 70′s and it was famous for its activities on the behalf of freeing Soviet Jewry from Russia.

In 1973, 2 years after Kahane arrived in Israel he began campaigning for a seat in the Knesset. In 1984, Kahane finally won a seat in the Knesset. It was later estimated that by 1988, Rabbi Kahane would win another 12 seats. In 1985, the Basic Laws of Israel were amended so that the Kach party could be declared racist. Although Kach’s platform was religious in nature and not based on race the government used this as a means of silencing Kach.

In 1990, after concluding a speech in a Manhattan, New York hotel, Kahane was killed by El Sayyid Nosair. Nosair was acquitted of murder but he was convicted of gun possession charges. The US government ignored the terrorist background of the Nosair murderer and considered him to be alone gunman. Subsequently in 1993 members of the murderers Jersey City mosque placed a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center and in 2001 followed up by attacking and destroying both towers of the WTC. Nosair later stood trial as a co-conspirator of Shaikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Both men received life sentences for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, conspiracy to use explosives against New York landmarks, and plotting to assassinate US politicians. Nosair received life plus 15 years of imprisonment.

Rabbi Kahane authored numerous books including The Story of the Jewish Defense League, Never Again, They Must Go, Our Challenge, Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews and others.

Phone number: 718-569-0921

A Step in the right direction – Not enough -

The Israeli Cabinet has approved an amendment to a citizenship law that requires new citizens to declare their loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic state,” the prime minister’s office said Sunday.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed vote, saying 22 ministers voted for the change and eight voted against it.

Now that the proposal has passed the Cabinet, it will be taken up by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, for passage into law.

Before his government’s weekly Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu made a forceful plea Sunday for changing the nation’s Citizenship Law. He challenged criticism that the revision is undemocratic and could harm relations with the minority Arab population.

Netanyahu cited the nation’s Declaration of Independence, which says Israel is both the “national state of the Jewish people” and a democratic state “in which all its citizens — Jewish and non-Jewish — enjoy fully equal rights.”

“Democracy is the soul of Israel and we cannot do without it,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his media adviser.

He noted that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East, and that “there is no other Jewish state in the world.”

“The combination of these two lofty values expresses the foundation of our national life and anyone who would like to join us needs to recognize this,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu announced last week he would push now for adding language to Israel’s citizenship and entry law that would declare a new citizen’s allegiance to “a Jewish and democratic state.”

After the prime minister announced the push, but before Sunday’s Cabinet vote, Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi said that Israel is “discriminative in its policies and laws against all who are not Zionists.” Zoabi went on to say the law “not only discriminates between Jews and non Jews, it also discriminates between Zionist Jews and non Zionists Jews.”

Another Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi, from the Ra’am-Ta’al party, criticized the move as well, saying that “the values of Jewish and Democratic cannot be in the same definition because democracy is the equality of all the citizens.”

“But an ethnic definition as Jewish is the preference of the Jew over that of the Arab and therefore it fixates an inferior status to 20 percent of the population,” Tibi said.

Unfortunately the Israelis themselves does not take the Jerusalem Post point to heart.

Otherwise they would not grant the ‘enemy’ rights to live and kill in Israel.

We wonder how the J-post can speak out of two sides of the mouth.

a. telling America to treat them Arab muslems as  an enemy as Israel does

b. Israel doing doing exactly the same as America does and banning all those who suggest removal of this enemy from Israel.

A Jerusalem Post Column

September 3, 2010

One need not be racist or Islamophobic to be concerned about the mosque. For life in our region has taught us that the first necessary step to defending yourself is acknowledging that someone else is out to destroy you.

In its basic form, the Ground Zero mosque debate boils down to a conflict between two competing values – American freedom of religion versus the sensitivities of the families of the victims of 9/11.

The freedom-of-religion argument suggests that if Jews sought to build a synagogue at Ground Zero (or anywhere else, for that matter), they would be within their rights. That’s the American way. The opposing view suggests that while not every Catholic was guilty in the Holocaust, and not every Muslim perpetrated the crimes of 9/11, sensitivities still matter. Pope John Paul II had the decency to force the Carmelite nuns out of Auschwitz, and Muslim leaders, too, ought to relocate their project.

Similarly, the mutual accusations are parallel: If you are opposed to the mosque, you are an Islamophobic racist. And if you’re in favor of it, you’re simply insensitive to the pain of those who lost loved ones in the attack.

But we Israelis have learned from our experience that matters are more complicated. One need not be racist or Islamophobic to be concerned about the mosque. For life in our region has taught us that the first necessary step to defending yourself is acknowledging that someone else is out to destroy you.

In the suburban, well-educated, politically and Jewishly liberal America in which I grew up, we didn’t use the label “enemy.” “Enemy” was a dirty word, because it implied the immutability of conflict.

Yes, there were people who fought us, but only because we hadn’t yet arrived at a fair resolution of our conflict. We needed to understand them, so we could then resolve the conflicts that divided us.

I still recall being jarred, when we made aliya, by the matter-of-factness with which Israelis use the word “enemy.” But it wasn’t a judgment or an accusation. It was simply a fact: There are people out to destroy our state, who seek to kill us and our children. And as the intifada later amply demonstrated, they did not yearn for our understanding or our friendship. They wanted our demise.

YEARS AGO, we took our then teenage daughter to an evening sponsored by the army, at which religious parents could ask questions about what the army would be like for their daughters. Some of the parents were downright hostile, clearly opposed to the prospect of their daughters joining the IDF. At one point, an obviously angry father stood up, turned to the base commander and asked (or more accurately hissed), “Do you make the girls work on Shabbat?” The room was perfectly silent, for everyone knew the answer. No one moved. Even the base rabbi said nothing. He stood at the podium, leaned into the mike and, lost in thought, played with his beard.

Suddenly, one of the three soldiers who’d been brought to address the parents, a young woman with her uniform shirt buttoned up to her chin, her sleeves extending to her wrists and her armyissued skirt down to her ankles, looked the father right in the eye, and without being called on, said to him, “Of course we work on Shabbat.” And then, after a second’s pause, she added, “Gam ha’oyev oved beshabbat” – the enemy also works on Shabbat.

It was a game changer. “What?” she essentially asked. “You think we do this for fun? There are people out there trying to destroy us. Either we’re as serious about this conflict as they are, or they’re going to win.”

I hadn’t thought of that young woman in years, but ever since the Cordoba Initiative controversy erupted, I’ve remembered her repeatedly. For Israelis do have something to teach Americans, and it’s very similar to what she said to that father.

It goes something like this: It’s fine to say that “America is not at war with Islam,” to point out that most Muslims are not terrorists and that many American Muslims are moderates. That’s true, as far as it goes.

Error! Filename not specified.But it only goes so far. Because America is at war and its enemies are Muslims. Politically correct hairsplitting runs the risk of Americans blinding themselves to that simple but critical fact. It makes no difference what percentage of the world’s Muslims wants to destroy America. There are enough of them that US air travel is now abominably unpleasant and, more importantly, enough of them that more strikes on America appear inevitable.

The US got lucky on Christmas Day when the bomber headed to Detroit failed to detonate his explosives, and was lucky again in Times Square in May, but less fortunate at Fort Hood. Yet those may be but the beginning. We could, heaven forbid, come to see 9/11 as child’s play.

THE UNITED States’ future is under attack, but Americans resist admitting it. President Barack Obama has sent 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, but he has also said that he intends to pull them out by July. Can we imagine FDR declaring war on Germany, but then adding that the war had to be over in a year, or in two? It would have been laughable. And America would have lost. The US has to decide – is it committed to destroying those who wish it ill, or is it willing to be destroyed by them? Those, sadly, are its only two alternatives.

When my parents were teenagers, they watched as evil took hold of Europe. But then they saw America turn itself into an unprecedented, enormous military machine. For America’s leaders understood that if the Nazis won, the world as we knew it would be over; we could either destroy Nazism, or have no reason to go on.

But when my children were teenagers, a different evil took root across their eastern horizon. This time, though, the world has feigned impotence.

Iran is at the nuclear threshold. Iraq was at best a “non-failure.” The battle against the Taliban and al-Qaida may take years, or decades, and may require many lives sacrificed if we are to win. But America has grown war-weary. Obama is already planning to bring the troops home; the word “terrorist” is increasingly off-limits in the US because it is considered “politically loaded.”

Americans simply want the conflict to be over.

Its tendency to gentility is part of what has made America great. But an unwillingness to call an “enemy” an enemy could lead to America’s demise. For Islam’s radical leaders tell us clearly what they seek: a world united under Islam, with America’s sacred freedoms eradicated as a new “morality” replaces them. What is much less clear is whether Americans are willing to fight – to die and to kill – to protect those freedoms.

Whether or not the Ground Zero mosque ultimately gets built may not matter nearly as much as whether or not Americans are willing to gird themselves for the battles that sadly lie ahead. We Israelis understand the fatigue that comes with war. We, like Americans, would much prefer a world in which we did not have mortal enemies.

We, like Americans, would much prefer that our children went to college at 18, and not to years of military service. But we’ve learned that anything short of absolute clear-sightedness and honesty – coupled with extraordinary sacrifice – could destroy us.

The same is true for America. The truly important question that the “Islamophobia” accusation raises is not what will transpire with a proposed building, but what will happen with a worldview.

It still remains to be seen if America will do what it must if it is to guarantee the survival of the very values it is now debating. America can remain the “land of the free,” but only if it is also the “home of the brave.”

FROM THE DESK OF

BARBARA GINSBERG

Rabbi Meir Kahane

LISTEN W WORLD LISTEN JEW

Written in 1980

A certain resolution on Zionism has been passed at the United Nations.  In reality, it is a resolution on Judaism.  It is important that a reply be give.  It is important that the world know precisely what Zionism is and what the Jewish people are:

It is important that the nations hear our proclamation: Listen world; I am Zionist, I am a Jew!”

And listen too, Jew.  Listen so that you will understand yourself who you are and what and why.  For there is no escape from it even if one should be so foolish as to desire to flee the greatness and majesty of the Jewish destiny.  Listen so that you will be able to stand proud and tall and know what to reply with dignity and not hesitant defensiveness.  So that you will know from where you came and to where you go, without the former to is impossible to know the latter.

“Our feet are standing within thy gates O Jerusalem.” – and they will never leave.  This is Zionism, and the Untied Gentiles call it “Racist” and debate how to take my city away from me.  Foolish world; sooner will the sun fail to rise tomorrow.  The Jews have come home to their Zion and have welded their city together with a fierce tightness that none least of all the humor that is the United Nations can sunder.  A people which patiently bides its time for millennia will not easily – ever – give up its state and capital.

[This article’s last paragraph speaks directly to the Popes and Obamas of the world.] B.G.

Dear friends,

I urge you to please forward this program, which aims to drum up some sort of opposition to the upcoming destruction of Jewish communities throughout the Land of Israel. The Israeli Government is going all out to try to make an “agreement” with the Arabs, we cannot allow this, we cannot allow for the destruction of more Jewish communities.

Yosef Rabin

The United Jewish Accord

The United Jewish AccordCoalition of Shuls, Organizations and Individuals unite to Oppose the Destruction of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights We have not forgotten how-10,000 Jews were expelled from their homes, synagogues, schools and businessesWe have not forgotten how -The areas, which were full of life and prosperity, were converted into terror training centersWe have not forgotten how -The peaceful towns of Sderot and Ashkelon were turned into hell on earth due to the non-stop rocketsWe have not forgotten how -So many of us stood in silence as all this occurred We Thus Declare: Any attempt by the Israeli Government to destroy communities situated in the territories liberated in 1967 – Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – shall be firmly opposed by the undersigned.                                      Opposition measures shall include: Ø  Boycotts against Israeli Officials and Diplomats
Ø  Protests during events where Israeli Officials and Diplomats are invited
Ø  Prayer-Protest vigils outside Israeli Consulates and Embassies
Ø  Phone and writing campaigns to Israeli Consulates and Embassies
Ø  Partnership with Jewish communities of Samaria

To join the coalition please contact jewishactivism@gmail.com *Shuls and organizations: Please add the name of the Shul/organization, city, state, address, phone, email and number of members (shuls, please add the name of the Rabbi) * Individuals: We urge individuals who do not belong to a participating shul or organization to organize family, friends and neighbors into local chapters. Please send your name, city, state, contact info and the amount of members currently in the chapter.

By George F. Will
Thursday, August 19, 2010; A17

JERUSALEM

In the intifada that began in 2000, Palestinian terrorism killed more than 1,000 Israelis. As a portion of U.S. population, that would be 42,000, approaching the toll of America’s eight years in Vietnam. During the onslaught, which began 10 Septembers ago, Israeli parents sending two children to a school would put them on separate buses to decrease the chance that neither would return for dinner. Surely most Americans can imagine, even if their tone-deaf leaders cannot, how grating it is when those leaders lecture Israel on the need to take “risks for peace.”

During Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s July visit to Washington, Barack Obama praised him as “willing to take risks for peace.” There was a time when that meant swapping “land for peace” — Israel sacrificing something tangible and irrecoverable, strategic depth, in exchange for something intangible and perishable, promises of diplomatic normality.

Strategic depth matters in a nation where almost everyone is or has been a soldier, so society cannot function for long with the nation fully mobilized. Also, before the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel within the borders established by the 1949 armistice was in one place just nine miles wide, a fact that moved George W. Bush to say: In Texas we have driveways that long. Israel exchanged a lot of land to achieve a chilly peace with Egypt, yielding the Sinai, which is almost three times larger than Israel and was 89 percent of the land captured in the process of repelling the 1967 aggression.

The intifada was launched by the late Yasser Arafat — terrorist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — after the July 2000 Camp David meeting, during which then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to cede control of all of Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank, with small swaps of land to accommodate the growth of Jerusalem suburbs just across the 1949 armistice line.

Israelis are famously fractious, but the intifada produced among them a consensus that the most any government of theirs could offer without forfeiting domestic support is less than any Palestinian interlocutor would demand. Furthermore, the intifada was part of a pattern. As in 1936 and 1947, talk about partition prompted Arab violence.

In 1936, when the British administered Palestine, the Peel Commission concluded that there was “an irrepressible conflict” — a phrase coined by an American historian to describe the U.S. Civil War — “between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country.” And: “Neither of the two national ideals permits” a combination “in the service of a single state.” The commission recommended “a surgical operation” — partition. What followed was the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939.

On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations recommended a partition plan. Israel accepted the recommendation. On Nov. 30, Israel was attacked.

Palestine has a seemingly limitless capacity for eliciting nonsense from afar, as it did recently when British Prime Minister David Cameron referred to Gaza as a “prison camp.” In a sense it is, but not in the sense Cameron intended. His implication was that Israel is the cruel imprisoner. Gaza’s actual misfortune is to be under the iron fist of Hamas, a terrorist organization.

In May, a flotilla launched from Turkey approached Gaza in order to provoke a confrontation with Israel, which, like Egypt, administers a blockade to prevent arms from reaching Hamas. The flotilla’s pretense was humanitarian relief for Gaza — where the infant mortality rate is lower and life expectancy is higher than in Turkey.

Israelis younger than 50 have no memory of their nation within the 1967 borders set by the 1949 armistice that ended the War of Independence. The rest of the world seems to have no memory at all concerning the intersecting histories of Palestine and the Jewish people.

The creation of Israel did not involve the destruction of a Palestinian state, there having been no such state since the Romans arrived. And if the Jewish percentage of the world’s population were today what it was when the Romans ruled Palestine, there would be 200 million Jews. After a uniquely hazardous passage through two millennia without a homeland, there are 13 million Jews.

In the 62 years since this homeland was founded on one-sixth of 1 percent of the land of what is carelessly and inaccurately called “the Arab world,” Israelis have never known an hour of real peace. Patronizing American lectures on the reality of risks and the desirableness of peace, which once were merely fatuous, are now obscene.

georgewill@washpost.com

Mercy to the cruel spawns cruelty to the merciful

By Abraham Cooper

From the very first day back in 1985, when officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center first presented a list of Nazi war criminals living in the United Kingdom to then- Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, I have never quite grown accustomed to this stock question from the media: “Just how long are you people with Wiesenthal  going to seek vengeance”?

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.