Trial By Media?

Rabbi Meir Kahane's hy"d widow writes about the mistreatment of her grandson Meir Ettinger:

On July 31, 2015 a house in Duma, an Arab village in Samaria, was firebombed by unknown persons, and a child and his parents were tragically killed. The entire gamut of Israel’s “Who’s Who” condemned the unknown persons, whom they labeled “Jewish Terrorists” because of questionable grafiti in Hebrew.

The condemnation was not enough to satisfy the New York Times, which quickly published an article titled, “Israeli Justice in West Bank Is Seen as Often Uneven.” This was picked up by all the foreign media and our government was pressured into taking hasty, precipitate action.

Among those arrested was my grandson, Meir Ettinger, named for his late grandfather, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who had a reputation for promoting unpopular opinions. He was the perfect scapegoat. He was arrested on August 3 and interrogated using illegal physical force, including punching and shaking him. On Sunday, August 9, he was taken before a judge to extend his arrest, but the court hearing he should have had was cut short by the arrival of an administrative detention order straight from Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon.

Read the rest.

Kahane Memorial: It's Been 25 Years

Time does fly. It's been 25 years since Rabbi Meir Kahane of blessed memory was murdered by an Al Qaeda terrorist. Last night I attended the annual memorial in Jerusalem.

I've been to a few of these memorials in the past. It seems to me that every year the crowd attending the memorial grows. I am always surprised by the number of young people that attend. A very significant percentage of those there were born after Kahane was assassinated. A lot of those attending had that "hilltop youth" look, sporting large knitted skullcaps and long sidelocks. There were also a few Hareidi youth there. I don't know if they came out of curiousity or if they identify with Kahane.

One of the recurring themes of the evening was that we do not have too look hard for what is causing the recent terror wave. It's written in the Book of Numbers chapter 33:

51 'Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places. 53 And ye shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it. 54 And ye shall inherit the land by lot according to your families--to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer thou shalt give the less inheritance; wheresoever the lot falleth to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers shall ye inherit. 55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that ye let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein ye dwell. 56 And it shall come to pass, that as I thought to do unto them, so will I do unto you.

"They must go." "There is no hope for coexistence with the Arabs." "If there are no Arabs there is no terror." Etc., etc. etc.

The Temple Mount also took center stage. Rabbi Yehuda Kroizer mentioned how more and more people are going up to the Har HaBayit. Aviya Moris, who famously called the "prophet" Mohammed a pig after being harrassed by Muslim women on the Temple Mount also spoke.

Another theme of the evening was reviewing the activities of various activists. Bentzi Gophstein mentioned that in the previous week his Lehava organization had rescued six Jewish women, some of them with children, from Arab villages. A film was shown that depicted some of the antics of activists Baruch Marzel, Dr. Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Gvir.

Naturally, there was also an appeal for contributions. I don't think that these people are not receiving too much support from the government. :) I imagine that they were able to raise a little bit of money from the sale of Rabbi Kahane's writings and other goodies that was taking place at the entrance to the hall.

Rabbi Dov Lior arrived and was greeted with the singing of "Yamim Al Yemei Melech Tosif". He talked, among other things, about Rabbi Kahane's commitment to Torah study and his fine character traits.

To sum things up, Rabbi Meir Kahane and his son Binyamin may have been murdered, but their ideas live on.

An Open Letter To The World by Rabbi Meir Kahane

Kahane Memorial: 23 Years

It's hard to believe but it has been 23 years since Rabbi Meir Kahane was murdered. Last night I had the privilege of attending the annual memorial. The place was packed! There were many young people there who were born long after the rabbi was murdered. Here are a few pics.

Adv. Itamar Ben-Gvir:

Baruch Marzel:

South Tel Aviv activist May Golan:

Recently elected Jerusalem City Councilman Arye King:

Dr. Michael Ben-Ari:

Among other things, Dr. Ben-Ari requested from Arye King that King George Street in Jerusalem be renamed Rabbi Meir Kahane Street. Let's see what happens.

Can Reform Judaism Get Its Mojo Back?

In "Jewish Ideas Daily", Evan Moffic asks, "Can Reform Judaism Get Its Mojo Back?"  A wise question may be half an answer. However, what can we say about a question whose very premise is false?  Mojo shmojo! It is impossible for Reform Judaism to get its mojo back, because it is something that it never had.  Reform Judaism is, and always has been, a shallow movement for shallow thinkers.  Essays will be penned, studies will be commisioned, but the search for Reform Judaism's non-existent mojo will lead to nowhere.

Rabbi Meir Kahane z"l accurately described this lack of mojo in his famous essay, "What Makes Bernie Run?"    I've quoted the essay before, and I will quote it again, for it is still relevant today:

And who else made Bernie run away from Judaism? Who else made Bernie what he is and is not? The massive, gaudy mausoleums that dot the landscape of every Jewish suburb. The temples. The temples whose senior rabbi is the caterer. The temples that perform human sacrifice rites each Sabbath morning and they call them, The Bar Mitzvah.

The Bar Mitzvah, that is not the beginning of a Jew but his end, his spiritual death. The Bar Mitzvah- that culmination of an empty, vapid, childish, shallow Jewish "education," taught by men and women whose ignorance and lack of Jewish content makes them superb vehicles for the "education" they pass on. The Bar Mitzvah, that obscene cult of ostentatiousness, the ultimate in Jewish status seeking, the competitive drive to bankrupt that pathetic and hapless "father of the Bar Mitzvah." The Bar Mitzvah where the young lamb babbles the words he neither understands nor cares to, to the accompanying nachas, pride, of beaming women and men who would not know a correct word from a mistake, whose ignorance is sublime and whose disgusting display of conspicuous vulgarity sends G-d fleeing from the mausoleum in wrath... 

The Bar Mitzvah whose necessary "religious" interlude long ago was subordinated to the piece-de-resistance of the entire immorality play - the "reception." The sickening waste of money and degrading of Judaism, where materialism runs amok in the guise of religion, where drunks and half-dressed women dance and give praise to the L-rd, with African dance, American tunes, and universal abomination. The Bar Mitzvah where the assimilationists, ignoramuses and despoilers of Judaism, beam with patronizing pleasure as the decrepit grandmother- Bubby- is resurrected from her nursing home or Miami Beach condominium and trotted out to light a candle to the applause of the go-go girls and dirty comedians waiting to do their act. 

The temple, where man thinks up G-d rather than admit that He made him. The temples, where the Jew can create any kind of religion that he cares to and call it Judaism. The temple, where things too difficult are junked and where from the Board of Directors shall come forth Torah and the voice of the L-rd from the approving Sisterhood membership. The temple, run by men whose ignorance of Judaism is exceeded only by their arrogant insistence on saluting it. The temple, where Bernie visits "G-d" and meets "Judaism" and flees from it in horror. The temples: they created Bernie, they made Bernie run.

Rabbi Kahane's description of the "Temple", written way back in 1975, was painfully accurate. There was absolutely no mojo there in those Temples, so it is a waste of time to look for it.

Whose Watchdog are They?: By Moshe Feiglin

I received this in the mail from Manhigut Yehudit.  Moshe Feiglin tells us about an interview that he gave to a young journalist.  You can learn a lot about Israeli journalists from this exchange:

24 Cheshvan, 5773
Nov. 9, '12

Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper

It is morning and my car glides down the mountains of the Shomron into the smog of greater Tel Aviv. Another crazy day of running for the primaries is about to begin. My cell phone rings. A young, determined voice is on the other end.

"Shalom, this is so and so from the news website, ynet."

"Shalom."

"I am writing an article about donations to the candidates in the primaries. I wanted you to confirm a certain fact. "

"Go ahead."

"I see that you received a donation from a woman by the name of Nitzah Kahane."

"OK."

"Is it true that Nitzah Kahane is the daughter in law of the late Rabbi Kahane?"

Maybe I hadn't yet completely awakened. Perhaps I was suffering from lack of sleep and loads of pressure during the campaign - but that question peeled a thick layer of politically correct right off my psyche.

"Oh," I answered the young reporter. "You probably want to show your readers that women support Feiglin."

"No", the man dryly answered.

"No? Then perhaps you would like to show your readers that a woman donating to Moshe Feiglin's campaign is also an academician whose scientific articles are published in the most prestigious journals in the world. "

"No," the young voice answered.

"Oh," I continued. "Perhaps your scoop is that a woman who is a famous academician, a mother of ten, grandmother of fifteen, who manages to synthesize running a beautiful family, a glorious academic career and is involved in the community and Israeli society in an unprecedented manner donated to Moshe Feiglin?"

"No," the reporter stood his ground.

"And after you hear all of this? Don't you feel just a wee bit loathsome?" I asked with disdain.

"No".

"OK," I finished the conversation. "I authorize that Professor Nitzah Kahane is the daughter in law of Rabbi Meir Kahane, may G-d avenge his blood, who was murdered 22 years ago in the US."

"Thank you," said the young voice in a professional tone. "That is all I needed."
 

My Condolences to the Krein Family of Cherry Hill, New Jersey

I would like to express my condolences to the Krein family of Cherry Hill, Stanley and Bunny, on the "marriage" of their son Howard to Ashley Biden. Oy Vey, what happened to their son, the doctor?

I imagine that as proud Jews they find no consolation in the fact that Ashley is the daughter of Vice President Joe Biden. I am almost certain that they, as intelligent and educated people, were not fooled by the antics of the clown that masqueraded as a rabbi at the ceremony:

Vice President Biden’s daughter Ashley married Dr. Howard Krein, a Jewish doctor from Philadelphia, on Saturday at the bucolic St. Joseph’s of the Brandywine in Wilmington, Delaware, which is the same church where she was baptized. In the official statement released by the vice president’s office, Joe and Dr. Jill Biden said, “We’re happy to welcome Howard into our family, and we wish them all the best in their new life together.”

The wedding ceremony, which was limited to 200 close family and friends of the bride and groom, was officiated by a Catholic priest, Father David Murphy, and a Reform Jewish Rabbi, Joseph M. Forman of Or Chadash synagogue in Flemington, N.J. Forman, a graduate of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Learning in Cincinnati, Ohio, assures the Forward that the ceremony contained the typical elements of the Jewish and Catholic wedding ceremonies.

“A Ketubah was signed. The couple got married under a beautiful chuppah, made of natural branches with a cloth covering,” he said. The wedding ceremony started with the traditional burach habim and included the priestly blessing and the shevai brachot. The groom stepped on a glass at the end.”

Of course, real rabbis do not perform intermarriages. According to Jewish law a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew, plain and simple. Not only that, the thought of "sheva brachot" being recited at such a ceremony is truly nauseating. I think that "rabbi" Forman has descended even lower than the level of the "temple rabbis" described in Rabbi Kahane's famous essay, What Makes Bernie Run?:

And who else made Bernie run from Judaism? The temple rabbis. The kept theologians who knowingly preside over fraud and grotesque jokes. The well-paid functionaries whose salaries are payments to hold their silence and to declare light, darkness and darkness, light: to give their stamp of kashrut on the impure meat that their temples serve up as "Judaism." The bribe takers whose eyes are blinded and consciences dulled by kavod, the honor of sitting on the pulpit before the eyes of the congregants, and by the comfortable salary augmented by the offerings of thankful beneficiaries of weddings, funerals and unveilings. The false prophets who hold their silence as Judaism is twisted, perverted, turned into a humorless joke and who, knowing their own corruptness and fraud of soul, rush to justify the fraud by 'rabbinical' or lingo that pronounce them "good." The temple rabbis who take a Judaism of Divinity and truth and go about Reconstructing it and Reforming it and making a mockery of Conserving it.

The temple rabbis who took the age-old axiom of Revelation, real Revelation, upon which is built the Divinity of Torah and junked it. The temple rabbis who made Judaism the product of ''wise men" (and if so, are there not wise Christians and Buddhists and atheists) and thus removed any sacredness and necessary reason for observance. The temple rabbis, so many of whom do not believe in G-d, who took the real and awesome Jewish G-d of history who made man and Created all and who rewards and punishes, and exchanged Him for a "god" who is "the spirit within man," indistinguishable from indigestion...They are the models of Jewish "religious" leadership we give unto Bernie, these empty vessels whose greatest fortune is that their congregants know even less, about Judaism than they do.

These are your rabbis, Oh Bernie, and then we wonder why he refuses to enter the temple over which they preside. Only they themselves know what frauds they are; only they, in their hearts, know what a life of lies they lead: only they, in the inner recesses of their being, know the self- hate and contempt they feel for themselves each day that they have to perform acts of faith they no longer believe in and teach a religion that long ago they secretly began to doubt. The temple rabbis; they created Bernie, they made Bernie run.

May the Krein family know no more sorrow.

Rabbi Meir Kahane Memorial

Translation:

Tuesday the 18th of Chesvan 21 years since the murder of the holy leader of Israel

Rabbi Meir David Kahane (my God avenge his blood)

Today everybody knows:

Rabbi Kahane was right!

The ascent to his grave on Har HaMenuchot at 4 PM.

The Central Memorial Gathering

Will take place on Tuesday the 18th of Chesvan (15.11.11) at 6:00PM

at the Heichal David Hall

14 Oholiav St. Jerusalem, near the Central Bus Station

With the participation of

MK Dr. Michael Ben Ari

Family, rabbis, and public officials

Those interested in holding a memorial where they live please call 02-5823540

www.rabbikahane.org

Hope to be there!

We are not Slaves

From an interview with MK Michael Ben-Ari:

Ben-Ari said Kahane should be remembered as a different kind of leader, one who, unlike those who saw Israel as a shelter, believed Israel existed to spread the message that God rules the world and that Jews must reiterate that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.

“This impacts everything we do,” Ben-Ari said. “For example, the letter to the UN secretary-general.

Some say, how can we fight the US when it’s so big? Kahane said God is great and America is nothing. I don’t mean to mock or harm the US, but we aren’t the slave of any empire.”

Compare this to what President Peres says:

President Shimon Peres said that Israel cannot survive without the help of the United States, at a Jerusalem conference of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute on Thursday.

Peres said that, "for our existence, we need the friendship of the United States of America."

1,000 at Kahane Memorial

From jpost.com:

Nearly a thousand people crowded into the event hall of the Ramada Hotel in Jerusalem on Tuesday night for the memorial service marking twenty years since Rabbi Meir Kahane was assassinated, on November 5, 1990.

“You can see a true awakening to Rav Kahane, because every year it’s growing, every year more and more people are joining us,” right-wing activist Baruch Marzel told The Jerusalem Post as he hurriedly tried to organize more chairs for hundreds of people standing outside. “There are those who thought that with each passing year it would be weaker, but that’s a lie.”

Too bad I couldn't make it. I'll have to purchase the comic book somewhere else.

A New/Old Jewish Superhero

Kikar Shabbat reports that "The Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea" has found and original way of passing on Rabbi Meir Kahane's legacy on to the young generation. They are putting out a comic book describing Kahane's life called "Rabbi Meir Ba'al HaNess". You can see some pages from the book at Kikar Shabbat.

In the meantime I saw an advertisement in BeSheva for this year's Kahane memorial. It will be taking place on the 18th of Marcheshvan (26th of October) at 6:00 PM in the Ramada Renaissance Hotel (6 Wolfson St.) in Jerusalem. The comic book will be on sale there (price: 50 NIS). I want to pick up a copy for my youngest son.

Hope to see you there!

Some Pics From the Kahane Memorial

Dudu Elharar was a hit:



MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari in the Knesset addressed the crowd:



Kahane books, shirts, stickers, etc. were on sale:

Kahane Memorial and the Israel Press

There is something about the late Rabbi Meir Kahane that makes the journalists go nuts. Posters announcing this year's memorial inspired this amazingly pathetic sentence in jpost:

Just a day after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist Ya'acov Teitel, and less than a week after the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing activist, Jerusalem has been plastered with posters in support of another controversial figure - the late ultra-nationalist orthodox rabbi Meir Kahane.

The journalist that wrote the sentence, or one of the editors over at jpost, just couldn't resist connecting the Kahane posters to the Rabin assassination and the alleged acts of Ya'acov Teitel. All this in the first sentence of what is supposed to be a news article.

At the end of the article there is a nice quote from MK Michael Ben-Ari:

Ben-Ari declared staunchly that Kahane "was not a racist... he loved Israel and if that means he was a racist, he was a racist... People who call him racist are the racists."

Bullseye!

In the meantime, Voice of Israel government radio proves again that they support free speech, that is as long as you are a leftist:

Voice of Israel government radio, which is part of the state-regulated Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), banned on Tuesday commercials urging attendance at memorial services for murdered former Knesset Member Rabbi Meir Kahane. His family said it will sue the government.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Knesset aide to MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari (National Union), warned that if the IBA does not cancel the ban, he will demand that it also prohibit commercials calling on the public to attend memorial services this week for former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.

The radio network yanked the ads after receiving complaints from listeners, including Peace Now, and explained its decision by saying that the issue of Rabbi Kahane is too “controversial.” The commercial featured a one-sentence statement by MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, who urged people to attend the services on the 19th anniversary of his death this Thursday. There was no reference in the ad to the history, life or political views of Rabbi Kahane.

By the way, the memorial will be on the 18th of Marcheshvan, Nov. 5th, at 6:00 PM at Heichal David Hall, 14 Oholiav Street in Jerusalem. Hope to see you there!

Kahane Was Right

I saw this on the way to work one morning. Somebody has a sense of humor, putting this sticker on the sign at the entrance to the court. I imagine that it didn't stay there too long:

The Kahane Biography

Recently I read the new biography of Rabbi Meir Kahane z"l, Rabbi Meir Kahane, His Life and Thought, Volume One: 1932-1975.

This biography is special in a number of ways. The author, Rabbanit Libby Kahane, was the rabbi's wife, and as such is able to give us the "inside story" behind the man who made the headlines. From time to time she calmly and decisively refutes the false claims of previous biographers. Almost everything she writes is meticulously documented. The author's knowledge as a librarian helped her to draw on a vast range of sources including FBI files made public under the Freedom of Information Act.

For those of us who were alive in the 1960s and 1970s, this book is a walk down Memory Lane. Those were turbulent years, and the various protests and struggles of that time play a central role in the book. It was Rabbi Meir Kahane that came to the rescue of the Jews that were the victims of inner city violence by forming the Jewish Defense League. It was Rabbi Kahane that succeeded in putting the plight of Soviet Jewry on page one of the newspapers and on the evening TV newscasts. The Rabbi even made headlines as a prisoner in Allenwood Federal Prison in his struggle to secure the right to kosher food for Jewish prisoners all over the country.

The book also reminds us things that have been forgotten with the passage of time. For instance, who remembers that in the early 1970s Rabbi Kahane was highly admired by politicians and journalists here in Israel for his militant stance, protecting Jews whether they be in the Bronx or in Moscow? Unfortunately, Rabbi Kahane lost this sympathy when he pointed out the inherent contradiction in the idea of a state that is Jewish as well as democratic. No one was able to answer his simple question: If the Arabs become the majority, do they have the right to vote the Jewish State out of existence? Lacking a genuine intellectual response, his opponents responded with long winded diatribes that avoided the question and hapless ad hominem arguments. (It is interesting to note that today the Israeli Left says quite openly that they are not interested in a Jewish State but rather "a state of all of its citizens", something which they would not admit 20 years ago.)

The book also mentions Rabbi Kahane's struggle for Torah Judaism and Jewish education. Rabbi Kahane understood the young American Jews of my generation. The Judaism which we were raised upon, which had been Conserved, Reformed, and Reconstructed to death, was a pathetic creed whose god was created in the image of man and as such was subordinate to him. He understood that the High-Holiday-fashion-show Judaism which we were exposed to was a wretched lie which would be soundly rejected by young people that loathe hypocrisy. Indeed, how few of us, products of the Reform/Conservative/Reconstructionist Bar/Bat Mitzvah factories, ended up marrying Jewish! Rabbi Kahane foresaw this disaster and did his best to prevent it.

In short, I highly recommend this book. I can't wait for Volume Two!

Rav Kahane Yahrzeit

Yesterday was Rav Meir Kahane's yahrzeit. Last night the annual memorial was held in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be there. You can see some pics from the gathering here.

Tzvi Fishman observed the yahrzeit by posting a condensed version of one of Kahane's essays. One part of the essay caught my attention:

The average Jew is sublimely ignorant, comfortably materialistic, stupendously blind, a man utterly lacking in understanding and faith. The practitioner of ritual, the ostensibly “religious Jew,” defies the injunction to live in the Land of Israel and embraces the pagan and unholy earth of Exile.

Hmmmm.

BTW, Fishman also has a real schlager of a Halloween post.

Graffiti On The Left, Graffiti On The Right

Lame leftist stencil graffiti on Barzilai Street Tel Aviv. Meow to occupation:



I hate graffiti, but at least this rightist graffiti artist didn't use a stencil. What's more he is right. It is located in front of the Maimon Elementary School in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem. Kahane's way is the solution to the Arab problem:

Street named after Kahane irks residents Ynetnews

Ynetnews descends to new lows with this article, accusing Rabbi Meir Kahane z"l of racism. Apparently they believe that if you repeat a lie enough times then it becomes truth:

All of this well-documented racist behavior, however, didn't stop Or Akiva from naming a street in his honor, causing residents to respond with outrage.

I've already blogged that Rabbi Kahane was not a racist. Not only that, but here is the "documentation" mentioned in the article:

Kahane founded Kach, a party which advocated transferring Palestinians out of the territories for monetary compensation and annexing those territories as part of an ideology believing in the concept of 'a greater Israel .'

The party won one seat in the 1984 Knesset and was subsequently banned from participating in future elections after the Election Law was amended to bar lists that incite racism.

He also founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL), which is listed by the FBI as a terrorist group.

Kahane was murdered by El Sayyid Nosair in 1990 after a speech in New York.

Wow, what great documentation!

The remarks of the mayor of Or Akiva contradict the entire essence of the article:

Or Akiva Mayor Simcha Yosifuv responded to the outcry on Monday, saying that "the decision to name a street after him was made 15 years ago. I wasn't the mayor then. It's a dead-end alley and in the four years I've been mayor not a single person has come forward to complain about it.

"He was a Jew who was murdered by fanatics because of his opinions. If any resident has a problem with the street we will bring the matter to the city council for discussion."