NATIONAL

Violent Life Of Kahane

Continued from Page 1

shooting, it is across a border
and not across a ballroom,"
Mrs. Drissman said.
She reacted bitterly to the
media attention to Rabbi
Kahane. "When he was here
last year they couldn't care
less. Now that he's dead he's
big news," she said.
At the New York funeral,
a mix of people including Or-
thodox and secular, the old
and young, surged against
police barricades in a futile
attempt to follow the plain
coffin draped with a black
velvet cover.
Supporters of the JDL
handed out fliers calling on
people to continue Kahane's
work: "A bullet cannot stop
us. It must not stop us," it
said. Numerous signs read
"Never Again," Rabbi
Kahane's slogan for JDL,
which was later adopted by
establishment organizations
in reference to the Holo-
caust. And there were signs
in Hebrew that said,
N'kama, or revenge.
The coffin was carried out
under darkened skies, with
helicopters hovering
overhead. Dozens of police
officers stood on Ocean
Parkway, which was shut off
to traffic.
The coffin was draped with
an Israeli flag as it was car-
ried out of the synagogue on
the shoulders of a dozen
men, who could barely reach
the hearse in the face of
hundreds of people crowding
around them and the syn-
agogue gates.
As the hearse finally pull-
ed away, people waved
Israeli flags, chanting "Am
Yisrael Chai." Others clen-
ched their fists and shouted
"An eye for an eye" in Heb-
rew, and "Never again!"
Hundreds followed the
hearse on foot, as it pulled
down the parkway toward
Kennedy Airport, for the
flight to Israel and burial on
Jerusalem's Mount of Ol-
ives.
Coincidentally, Rabbi
Kahane's father-in-law,
Leon Blum, died in Israel on
Monday night of natural
causes.
The outspoken Rabbi
Kahane, whose political
platform called for the
transfer of Arabs from inside
Israel to beyond the ad-
ministered territories, was
largely ostracized by the
mainstream Jewish estab-
lishment, both here and in

Israel, for his radical polit-
ical views.
"I had a lot of admiration
for his willingness to ask the
hardest questions," said
Alan Dershowitz, a law pro-
fessor at Harvard University
who defended Kahane a
number of times over the
years.
"Meir Kahane asked some
of the best questions of any
Jewish leader in modern his-
tory and gave some of the
most dangerous answers. I
disagreed fundamentally
with his answers, but I
defended his right to say
them," Mr. Dershowitz said
in an interview. It was that
right to say what he felt that
made Rabbi Kahane a
pariah in most circles. After
having been elected to
Israel's Knesset in 1984, he
was later thrown out for ad-
vocating what Israeli courts
declared were racist views.
He was also barred from ap-
pearing in many synagogues
around the United States.
"Part of the blame (for the
assassination) lies with
those who wanted to censor
him," Mr. Dershowitz said.
"Jews and non-Jews who
wanted to censor him bear
some moral responsibility
for starting down a path that
inevitably leads to this."
But others would contend
that Rabbi Kahane fell vic-
tim to the violence and
racial hatred he preached.
He often spoke of Arabs
multiplying "like rabbits
and dogs" in advocating
their removal from Israel
before they overwhelmed
and defeated the Jewish
population, and he preached
taking the law into one's
own hands if the cause was
right.
The militant leader first
gained national prominence
in 1968 in New York, where
he founded the Jewish
Defense League, with a clen-
ched fist as its symbol and
"Never Again!" as its
slogan.
"They were good days,"
said 60-year-old Bertram
Zweibon, a co-founder of the
JDL who knew Rabbi
Kahane for close to 30 years.
"We set out to accomplish
certain objectives, and by-
and-by we were relatively
successful. One was to raise
the level of Jewish pride, so
that the physical assaults on
Jews, which were on the rise
in 1968-1969 when JDL was

founded, could be properly
prevented.
"Second, the question of
the Jews imprisoned in
various lands, the Soviet
Union in particular. He
could not sleep, none of us
could, who grew up in the
shadow of the Shoah (the
Holocaust) and let it happen.
Let it happen again and do
nothing? So we did some-
thing, those of us who heard
that different shofar," Mr.
Zweibon said in an inter-
view.
Rabbi Marc Angel, presi-
dent of the Rabbinical Coun-
cil of America, the rabbinic
arm of Orthodox Jewry,
issued a statement saying,
"I believe it was
Kierkegaard who said that
when a tyrant dies his rule
ends; but when a martyr
dies, his rule begins. An
Arab assassin has now made
a martyr of Rabbi Meir
Kahane.
"This horrifying act of
violence, though, will only
serve to strengthen the
movement which Kahane
headed. Kahane had long
argued that Jews simply
cannot trust Arabs. The
assassin, in the minds of
many, will have justified
Kahane's ideology."
The Student Struggle for
Soviet Jewry said in its
statement, "Although we
disagreed from our beginn-
ing in 1964 most strongly
with Rabbi Kahane over the
use of violence to achieve
freedom for Soviet Jews, the
historic fact clearly remains
that he brought their plight
dramatically to world atten-
tion. Rabbi Kahane strode
where many others feared to
tread."
Rabbi Sholom Klass;
editor and publisher of the
Jewish Press, the Orthodox
Brooklyn newspaper where
Rabbi Kahane had written a
weekly column for 20 years,
said, "Meir Kahane was a
man with a dream, that his
people could dwell in peace
in their ancestral homeland,
the Holy Land, the land of
Israel, of Jerusalem. He died
for that dream."
New York Mayor David
Dinkins issued a statement
calling the killing "an
international tragedy that
shocks us all. Meir Kahane
devoted his life to the
defense of the State of Israel
and the support of the Jew-
ish religion. He has paid the
ultimate sacrifice for his

dedication to his principles."
At the time of his death,
Rabbi Kahane was in the
midst of legal problems both
in the United States and
Israel. In Washington, he
was awaiting a decision on
his U.S. citizenship from
Judge Aubrey Robinson, the
judge who sentenced
Jonathan Pollard to life im-
prisonment. Rabbi Kahane
had been stripped of his U.S.
citizenship by the govern-
ment following his election
to the Knesset.
On Tuesday, the Knesset

rose for one minute of silence
when its session began, as is
customary en the deaths of
all serving or former
Knesset members. Some left-
wing and Arab members
absented themselves from
the session.
Rabbi Kahane also was in-
volved in two criminal cases
in Israel. The first involved
his having led a large pro-
test rally to the Old City in
May 1989 after two elderly
Jews were murdered on
Jaffa Road in Jerusalem.
Eleven Kach activists were
arrested, and police charged
him with having refused to
disperse.
The second case involved a
speech he gave following the
July 4, 1989, murder of 16
Jews on a bus from Tel Aviv
to Jerusalem, in which he

Rabbi Kahane in a
moment of triumph,
having gained a seat in
the 1984 Knesset
elections for his KW')
party.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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