He told the Jews gathered in Allentown that their leaders were spineless, that's how the controversial rabbi spoke. When Meir Kahane came to town in the summer of 1990, none of the Jewish institutions would give him space to speak. Before immigrating to Israel, he had formed the Jewish Defense League in NYC in 1968. He lectured that turning the other cheek was a Christian concept, and that the minimum take away from the Holocaust was that American Jews should own a gun, and know how to use it. His views in Israel about nationalism on the West Bank were much more controversial, and he was jailed there for incitement.
His speech in Allentown was one of his last. He was assassinated later that year during a speech in NYC.
above reprinted from 2014, 2018
ADDENDUM DECEMBER 12,2019: Although it was 50 years ago that Kahane formed the Jewish Defense League in the NYC area, a resurgence of that group would still be needed today.
molovinsky on allentown is produced on weekdays throughout the year.
Yes, and I know for a fact that many Jews are arming themselves as should all Americans.
ReplyDeleteWhat most American Jews didn't understand is that Kahane was not a Jeffersonian Democrat like them, rather, he was an orthodox rabbi that believed God gave the Jews the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, and that anyone else had to be driven of the land.
ReplyDeleteWhat Kahane and the orthodox Jews & nationalists and the Evangelical Christians don't get is that God neglected to tell the other Gods of the people living in the region, then & now, like Amon Ra, Baal,Dagon, Allah, etc., etc.
Rather than Kahane's God giving the land to the Jews, they had to fight & kill everyone else there for every inch they acquired. The historical Joshua led an army; he was not a priest.
And so it goes and has ever been so, whether it is Old World or New World people or nations.
We create our Gods and falter ourselves that we look like them and that what we want is because they want it for us and promise us it, especially if we worship them.
Unfortunately, what were Kahane's views yesterday are today very mainstream in Israel, abetted by the same nationalist, bigoted viewpoints of right wing & religious wack jobs in Europe & the USA. All this does is perpetuate injustice & death & endless war. "Blessed are the Peacemakers" is another facet of religious belief never practiced.