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.