Conference taveng::bagels

  He was a learned rabbi.

  He was a champion of Jewish civil rights.

  He taught us how to say, "Never again!"

  He told us to stand up and take what is rightfully ours.

  May his murderer's act of violence bring this about.

  Olav Hashalom, Meir Kahane.

A fearless leader and visionary, deterred by nothing and no one. Sincerity
encompassed  him completely. At Rabbi Kahane's Shabbat table, no political
discussions  were permitted..he believed in the Torah which he studied and
taught  with all  his being -- and did  everything in his power to live in 
accordance with his beliefs, unafraid. Whether or not one agreed  with his
every position, his undeniable total dedication to Jewish survival must be
the goal which we must all work towards with  all our strength, in any way
we can.

May he be _meilist_yosher_ for his beloved Jewish people in _Gan_Eden_.

Jem

    Could someone please enter a news item about this?  What happened?
    
    			-John Bishop

    I expect more information will be released today.  What I heard this
    morning on the news was the Meir Kahane had been shot and killed in New
    York last night.  Some other people were also wounded, including the
    assailant, who was taken to a hospital and is now in police custody. 
    He apparently gave a New Jersey address, and his name was not released.
    There was also a story about various uproars in Israel because of this
    assassination, but I did not catch the details (I had arrived at my
    local polling place to vote, and by the time I got through the line and
    out again, the news broadcast was over).  Much as I disagreed with
    Kahane's approach, his loss is to be mourned.
    
    /Charlotte

    I'm sorry for Kahane's death also, but we must also remember what
    happens to those who live by the sword.  Re: .0, I hated Kahane while
    he lived, and I don't consider myself a "Jewish Revisionist", I
    consider that an insult.  Kahane appealed to the basest of instincts in
    people, much as the "anti-zionists" on the other side of the border do. 
    Don't ever question mine or anybody else's commitment to am yisrael
    just because I opposed Kahane.
    
    --David

Kahane was speaking last night before a small Jewish audience. The assailant
walked up to him, smiled, and shot him in the neck. He then shot an older
man in the leg who tried to prevent his escape. Once outside, the
killer got in a cab and pointed his gun at the cabbie's head, but people
from the audience managed to surround the cab. A person in the crowd happened
to be a security guard and he managed to wound the killer.

The killer had a name that sounded Arabic, and he was believed to be
a former Palestinian. The TV showed a bloody sidewalk scene.

Dave

    As one who had very little use for Kahane I still have to say that I am
    shocked and upset at his assasination.
    
    					Aaron

    I am sorry to hear of this tragic assassination. CNN-TV
    News said that according to Israeli radio, assailant
    Nosair is a former resident of some Occupied Territory.   

    Meir Kahane, the Kach party (and its eventual disqualification)
    and to some degree JDL, all are discussed in topic 235.
    Specifically JDL is mentioned in 235.0, .41, .42, and .57 .
    "Bomb" is mentioned in 235.39 . It would be informative to
    hear against whom the JDL committed or planned acts of violence.
    Were there any court convictions?

    What kind of bombing incident(s) was the JDL perpetrating?
    Did the JDL plant (and detonate) bombs in the USA?
    Or perhaps the JDL only assembled bombs, but did not
    set them off?
    
    I suppose the JDL, like many organizations, was divided into
    factions, and Rabbi Meir Kahane perhaps had no connection
    with those JDL sections (splinters) rumored to have been
    assembling and/or planting bombs.
    
    Does BAGELS have (or need, or desire) a separate topic for
    discussion of the JDL (Jewish Defense League) which was
    apparently organized by Meir Kahane ? 

>                        -< bagels needs a JDL topic ? >-

	I hope not...  but if you're going to say thing like this:

>    What kind of bombing incident(s) was the JDL perpetrating?
>    Did the JDL plant (and detonate) bombs in the USA?
>    Or perhaps the JDL only assembled bombs, but did not
>    set them off?
    
	you ought to at least know where the JDL came from.  You make it
	sound like the JDL was/is a branch of the IRA. The JDL was organized 
	to defend individual Jews in Brooklyn, NY.

	The impetus for this came when (I forget the exact years) there
	was an extended outbreak of thefts, murders, and rapings centered on
	elderly Orthodox women in Brooklyn.  The incidents which "set off" the
	formation of the JDL were two such well-known rapings, in which crowds
	gathered around the rapists as they were forcing their victims, and
	encouraged them as they watched.  Afterward, the police were unable /
	unwilling to act, even on repeated requests ("we can't do anything ...
	we have no evidence ... the crowd should have acted ...")

	Rabbi Kahane and others organized regularly-scheduled, "private" street 
	patrols in Brooklyn. He received a huge amount of heat for doing so,
	from the police, from the City of NY, from others.  However, JDL
	caught a reasonable number of these criminals "in the act" and 
	handed them over to the police, who were appropriately embarrassed.
	They protested each time at this "usurpation of their authority."
	They arrested Kahane several times for this "illegal activity."
	Of course, this did nothing for Kahane's reputation.  However,
	within some time, the rate of these murders/thefts/rapings dropped
	markedly.  QED.

don feinberg

A distant relative of mine (different last name) was a member of Mr. Kahane's
JDL.  He currently, and I might add correctly, sits in jail somewhere in
NY after a wild west style shoot-up in the city with the local police.  Many
years ago we tried to talk him out of join this terrorist organization but
obviously without success.  While I certainly won't miss Kahane, I don't
support blowing someone away just because you don't like the shape of his nose.

From: [email protected] (LESLIE WINES)
Newsgroups: clari.news.group.jews,clari.news.bulletin
Subject: Kahane's death may lead to violence
Date: 6 Nov 90 11:11:34 GMT
 
	NEW YORK (UPI) -- The death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the militant right-
wing politician whose views were criticized as racist, could lead to
acts of revenge against Arabs in Israel and the United States, his
supporter say.
	Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League who spent four
stormy years in Israel's parliament, was shot to death Monday night at
the Marriott Marquis East hotel in Manhattan, police said.
	A Zionist from his youth, Kahane, 58, was shot once in the head and
once in the chest at 9:05 p.m. and was taken to Bellevue Hospital where
he died less than an hour later, said hospital spokeswoman Karen Crowe.
	Supporter Irving Franklin, 73, and one other man, were wounded as the
suspect in the attack, identified as Lel Sayyid Nosair, 34, of New
Jersey, attempted to flee, police said. Franklin attempted to prevent
the attacker from escaping the conference room and was shot in the right
leg, police said.
	Police in Israel stepped up patrols Tuesday to prevent attacks on
Arabs. In the past following Arab attacks on Jews, activists from
Kahane's Kach Party frequently were involved in anti-Arab reprisals.
	Chief of Detectives Joseph Borrelli said the shooting occurred during
a question and answer session after Kahane's speech, when, ``an
individual who had been present throughout the entire speech approached
Kahane and pulled a revolver.''
	Borrelli said the suspect's nationality was unknown, but police said
he was of Middle Eastern ancestry.
	According to witnesses, it appeared the shooter acted alone, Borrelli
said.
	Irv Rubin of Los Angeles, Kahane's successor as leader of the JDL,
threatened retaliation in the death.
	``We're not going to sit by and let a dirty, filthy Arab assassin
assassinate Jewish people,'' Rubin said. ``The fact that they can cut
down Rabbi Kahane in his prime is a forboding to all Jewish people that
there are dark days ahead.''
	Sol Margolis, national president of Kach in Washington, issued a
statement that concluded: ``Let there be no doubt. The Kach organization
is ... built on Jewish law and Jewish law understands the concept of
revenge. Let the enemies of Israel not sleep calmly because Rabbi
Kahane's (followers) shall surely see to it that they have their
rendevous with destiny.''
	Meanwhile, nearly 100 followers of the rabbi maintained a vigil
outside Bellevue Hospital early Tuesday.
	Supporters were expecting an overflow crowd to line the wide
boulevards in the heavily Jewish sections of Brooklyn for Kahane's
funeral Tuesday afternoon.
	His body was to be carried to Israel Tuesday night on a flight out of
Kennedy International Airport, said city Councilman Noah Dear of
Brooklyn.
	Police presence for the day was expected to be strong, Dear said.
	After the initial shootings, the gunman fled to the street. He took
the cab west for a few blocks and returned to the street, where he
confronted Postal Officer Carlos Acosta, Borrelli said.
	Nosair allegedly shot at Acosta twice, one bullet was deflected by
his bulletproof vest and the other struck him in the arm. The officer
returned fire, striking Nosair in the chin, Borrelli said.
	Nosair also was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he underwent
surgery, said Crowe, the hospital spokeswoman.
	Kahane founded the JDL in the United States. The organization's
rallying cry, ``Never Again,'' refers to the 6 million Jews who perished
in the Nazi holocaust.
	The Brooklyn-born Kahane emigrated to Israel and in 1984 was elected
to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on a promise to drive Arabs from
Israel and the occupied West Bank. He also vowed to outlaw marriages
between Jews and non-Jews in Israel.
	Because of his radically anti-Arab views Kahane was not permitted to
run for a second term.
	His outspokenness proved popular for a time, according to polls, but
Kahane later found himself the pariah of Israeli politics. Political
analysts said fellow Knesset members agreed informally to shun him, and
the Israeli press and television chose to limit coverage of him, and
eventually he was denied an opportunity to run for re-election.
	``From our point of view, Mr. Kahane does not exist,'' a Labor Party
spokeswoman said in 1987. ``What he wants is against all our beliefs.''
	Jerusalem Post Editor Ari Rath said the policy was an attempt to
regain control from someone who used the press by staging events and
gimmicks to espouse his beliefs repeatedly.
	Kahane was born in Brooklyn to a respected orthodox rabbi. A guest in
their house, admired by young Kahane, was Zev Jabotinsky, founder of the
Zionist movement's militant right wing and mentor of former Prime
Minister Menachem Begin.
	While a boy, Kahane directed his militance not at Arabs but the
British, who occupied Palestine until 1948, when the state of Israel was
declared. As a member of the Betar Youth Movement, Kahane demonstrated
in favor of creating the Jewish state.
	Kahane was 15 when he and his young colleagues smashed the car
windows of Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, on a visit to
New York. Police arrested Kahane. It was the first of many arrests. He
later estimated having spent more than three years in prisons in the
United States and Israel.
	``He showed brilliance as a kid, marked leadership, a tremendous
drive and ambition,'' said Mordechai Dolinsky, a friend from boyhood
who, long after a political parting of ways, became director of the
Israel Government Press Office.
	In the 1960s, while in public relations, Dolinsky advised Kahane on
how to counter black efforts to rid New York City schools of white
teachers, many of them Jews. Kahane organized patrols on Halloween to
keep hostile gangs from overturning gravestones in Jewish cemeteries.
	Although Dolinsky said Kahane rarely heeded his advice, the meetings
gave birth to the Jewish Defense League. Dolinsky dropped out, but the
organization grew.
	In the years that followed, it was accused of bombings and other
vigilante actions against targets its members believed to be anti-
Semitic. One bomb killed a receptionist at the office of Sol Hurok, an
importer of Soviet talent. The JDL disavowed the act. While in the
United States, Kahane spent a year in federal prison for conspiring to
make bombs.
	Kahane emigrated to Israel in 1971. The Interior Ministry nearly
denied him citizenship, and he was roundly condemned in the Israeli
parliament, for actions that over the years would include barging
illegally into Jerusalem's Hebrew University and staging a demonstration
in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
	Three times -- in 1973, 1977 and 1981 -- Kahane failed in his bid for a
Knesset seat. But in July 1984 his Kach Party was one of the many small
parties that benefited from a large protest vote against the two main
parties. His campaign slogan was: ``Give me the strength to take care of
them once and for all.''
	In his campaign, Kahane made it clear he intended to use his Knesset
seat -- and with it, his immunity from prosecution -- to urge ridding the
Jewish state and its territories of 2 million Arabs.
	One in every 80 Israeli voters cast a ballot for Kahane's party.
Pollsters said afterward that a large share of the supporters were Jews
whose families had lived under Arab rule in Islamic countries before
immigrating to Israel.
	Kahane refused to say how many card-carrying members the party had,
but most of its financial support came from the United States. And so
did much of the criticism.
	After his election, Israeli newspapers, radio and TV were troubled
over how to cover him. Some Israeli editors argued that publicity was
the best weapon against Kahane's racism. Others called for a ban.
	The Jerusalem Post wrote in an editorial that Kahane might not be a
source of legitimate worry, but as a racist, he was ``a source of shame
for Israel and for the Jewish people.''
	Saying his Kach Party was racist and degraded Arabs, the Israeli
Central Election Committee banned Kahane from running for a second term
in the Knesset in 1988.
	In an interview with United Press International after his election,
Kahane disputed the racist label, saying, ``A racist is someone who
says, 'I'm better than you, and you can never be better.' I'm a rabbi
who says exactly what Judaism preaches.''
	He said: ``Jew or non-Jew, our skin, blood and brains are the same.
We have only one thing that makes us different from non-Jews, and that's
Torah,'' the five books of Moses.
	Other Jews hated him, Kahane contended, because of his ideas, not his
actions. ``I'm forcing them to choose between Judaism and Western
humanism. I don't want this to be a Hebrew-speaking Portugal, or Greece,
or America. I want all schools to teach Judaism,'' he said.
	After his election, his mother, a resident of Israel, said he should
return to the United States. ``There they understand what he is doing
for the Jewish people, and they adore him,'' she said. ``But Meir is
unwilling. He loves Israel.''

  I've excerpted [with a few inserts] a paragraph from the UPI
article reproduced above in 993.11 pertinent to the question
of JDL's (and Rabbi Meir Kahane's) use of BOMBS.

>In the years that followed [Dolinsky's leaving],
>it [JDL] was accused of BOMBINGS and other vigilante actions
>against targets its members believed to be anti-Semitic.
>One BOMB killed a receptionist at the office of Sol Hurok, an
>importer of Soviet talent. The JDL disavowed the act. While in the
>United States, Kahane spent a year in federal prison for conspiring to
>make BOMBS.

Can anyone say when Rabbi Meir Kahane went to prison for "conspiring
to make BOMBS"?  Who were Kahane's (alleged) co-conspirators?
When and where did Kahane allegedly conspire to to make BOMBS?

It could be argued that some of the gvt's "conspiracy" prosecutions
are based on flimsiest of evidence and unreasonably wide statutes.
Do any of us BAGELers feel Kahane was not fairly tried and convicted
of conspiring to make BOMBS?   Oh yes, I can't resist asking:
What sort of "Soviet talent" was Sol Hurok supposedly importing?

RE: .-1
It is insensitive, at best, to insert this kind of material in a topic
that is basically a eulogy for Rabbi Kahane. I don't approve of the Rabbi's
political views either, but you are diverting attention from the main
issue, which is that a cowardly scum-ball has committed a murder. Is your
point that murder is justified?

Dave

	.12 That's right. Mcallen, I too find your entries in this note
exceedingly asinine, because of the context. I am also somewhat amused by your 
chase down Kahane's past, all the while ignoring the assasin's conspiracy 
connections. Go start your pile of scum in some other note.

DG

    Rabbi Meir Kahane alav hashalom
    
    Please G-d may his passion for the Torah, Israel, Judaism thrive
    
    \B

I believe Sol Hurok was involved in bringing Soviet Ballet companies 
to the USA.  I remember seeing his name on ballet programs dating 
back to the 60's and 70's.  I do not know what other talent he imported.

Much as I do not agree with the tactics used by the JDL, I find it hard 
to believe the JDL was the only "anti-Soviet" group around when the 
letter bomb was sent.

Sara

I think the level of charges, accusations, between Mr. McAllen and others 
warrants soem moderator intervention.  Let's get off the flaming and name-
calling.

/d.c.

    I just re-read all the replies to this note and did not notice any
    name-calling toward Mr. McAllen.  Can you quote any example, please?
    
    Regards,
    Leo

    re: .18
    
    Perhaps it's more the accusatory tone of the replies, more like "you
    know that you're an anti-semite, Mr. McAllen...."  It is the practice,
    in this country and in Israel anyways, that a person is innocent until
    proven guilty.  
    
    --David

    My 993.12 makes no statements about Rabbi Kahane.
    
    It does suggest that some conspiracy convictions in
    the USA could be the result of trumped-up charges,
    flimsy evidence, or frameups by government prosecutors.
    
    993.12 also reproduces a paragraph from the UPI article
    of 993.11, and asks 4 pertinent questions: Where, when
    and with whom did Rabbi Kahane allegedly conspire to
    make bombs, and when did Rabbi Kahane's prison term
    commence?  A 5th and somewhat peripheral question regarded
    the type of Soviet talent being imported by Hurok. It was
    answered in a subsequent reply. It may possibly be irrelevent
    to either Rabbi Kahane or the JDL, since the JDL apparently
    disavowed involvement in that bombing. The other 4 questions
    remain. Let the eulogy continue.
    

I figured Rabbi Kahane best spoke for himself: extract from a speech on Nov1st
in a Boston temple.


	"The intifadah is corroding Israel. Either the territories belong to us
or they don't. We can't say right now that the land isn't occupied - it is. The
intifadah has been going on for three years. How can Israel, which crushed four
Arab armies in six days, be incapable of stopping the intifadah? To save Jewish
lives, we must remove the Arabs, but a Jew says it's immoral so the Arabs remain
and that Jew has blood on his hands.
	The United Nations is just dandruff, you brush it off, that's not
Israel's problem. The tragedy for Israel is that for 15 minutes we let the Arabs
throw rocks from the Temple Mount.
	Last year the chief of staff of the Israeli Army said it was impossible
to put down the intifada. What was that statement worth to the Arabs? You let
me be minister of defense for a week, and there will be no more intifada."

	He compared his plans for evacuation to the 1945 expulsion of ethnic
Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as to the Hindu-Moslem
population exchange between India and Pakistan. "We took the Jews from the Arab
world in a population exchange, now lets finish the job. What Israeli Government
has ever demanded compensation for the property that Sephardic Jews left 
behind?"

	The Arabs will leave, Kahane promised, "no matter what it takes to get
them to go... I don't want to kill Arabs. We will transfer the Arabs to the 
countries to which they want to go. I wish them well - elsewhere. And if they
want to take over Jordan and call it Palestine - that's fine with me, but the
one country I have is mine."

	Kahane maintained that "the American Jew has not the slightest 
understanding of the Arab, but thinks that there is no problem that can't be 
worked out. That's true if you are sitting in Peoria. But the Middle East is
not the Middle West. It's a different mindset, culture and view. The Arabs
understand one thing - power and srtength." The rabbi decried " the contempt
that liberals have for Arabs. Do you think that we can buy their national pride
with indoor plumbing? What Jew in this audience wants to live in Jerry Falwell's
Christian state? HATIKVA is our hope, but it's their nightmare. On Israel's
Independence Day, do the Arabs rush into the streets to celebrate their defeat?"

	There is a basic contradiction between Zionism and Western democracy,
which cannot be avoided, Kahane said. "The movement for the Jewish state was
a response to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the pogroms and the Auschwitzes.
We will be masters of our fate, captains of our ship. Democracy, on the other
hand, means majority rule. It means the Arabs can peacefully have enough babies
to become the majority. We all want to think Judaism is Thomas Jefferson, but 
it is not."

	Kahane recalled the Arab pogroms against Jews in 1920, 1921, 1928 and
1936-38. "What was bothering the Arabs in 1929?" he asked sarcastically. "That
Jews were occupying land in 1967? The Arabs object to a Jewish state of any
size, shape or form. What is wrong with us? We Jews have a deep, deep problem,
Jewish guilt, a Jewish AIDS. We suffer from 1900 years of a disease called
galut (exile). We've been losing so long we don't know how to win. We've been 
dying so long it's hard to learn to live. It's better to have an Israel hated
by the world than an Auschwitz loved by it." What country, Kahane asked
increduosly "is attacked four times, wins four times, and then talks about
giving up land? If you start a fight and lose, you lose. Winners don't give up
land, losers do." Calling himself a "proponent of land for peace", Kahane said
"We'll keep the land and give them all the peace they want. There is only one
reason not to give up an inch of land - it belongs to us. If we have no right
to Hebron, we have no right to Tel Aviv. Our claim to Tel Aviv is based on our
claim to Hebron. Abraham never walked on Dizengoff Street (T.A's main drag)".

	Kahane excoriated Israel's dependence on U.S. aid, calling the Jewish
state "an economic junkie" and a "vassal state". He recommended an end to
socialism and teh introduction of a free enterprise economy. He also asserted
that "Israel has failed in its public relations. For one less F-16 you can
set up a tremendous program on every campus in America, and get a lot more out
of it than you would from an F-16."

	"What has happened to our faith in God? Do you think Israel is a normal
country? God made the land in six days, we took it in six days, and on the
seventh day we both rested... We see miracles in our time that we haven't seen
for 3000 years. Of course the Jew has to fight. You have to 'daven' Mincha, then
fight. You can't do either one without the other." Kahane finished with a Torah
story on how God gave the Jews the Torah on a small mountain rather than a large
one so they would be humble. "The Gerer rebbe asked, 'So why not give the Torah
in a valley?' To teach Jews two lessons - be humble, but don't be too humble.
No one should step on us."

DG

    This is my first entry in this notes file. So why dafka here?
    I don't know. But with the recent death of a very good friend of mine
    from cancer, I looked to reconcile it. So I looked in BAGELS.
    Kahane caught my eye.
    My older brother and I grew up with the Kahane family; we went to the
    same schul, to the same yeshiva in Flatbush, and my brother picketed
    with Meir in NY in front of the Soviet Embassy.
    We didn't know Meir very well, much later, as adults in Israel.
    But, according to halacha, a judge must have an "advisor" on each
    side (three decide on cases). One must be for, the other, against. Meir
    was on one side, nothing more. The miracle of Judiasm is based on this
    balance.
    
    Meir is as well known, as his brother, who was in my class, is unknown.
    We lived in Jerusalem for many years.
    (Just as much as Stern's (gang) brother is a quiet, peaceful poet.)
    
    shalom
    
    dov