Not by Might and Not by Power: Kahanism and Orthodoxy

Vol. 6, No. 1. 1991.

Meir kahane’s assassination was abhorrent. But so were the reactions of some highly visible Jews. … It is incomprehensible that responsible individuals, including Seymour Reich of the Conference of Presidents, Abraham Foxman of the ADL, as well as a representative of the Israeli consulate (all three of whom attended Kahane’s funeral) and Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, found it necessary to pay their respects to a man they claimed to loathe. Once again, American Jewish leaders and Israeli officials appeared unable to maintain a moral stance when confronted with populist chauvinism and an outcry for ethnic solidarity. They not only reduced Jewish moral capital, but also showed themselves to be not very different from the leaders of other ethnic communities and political bodies whom the Jewish establishment routinely condemns as weak-kneed and unprincipled. …

Kahane has been embraced as a Jewish hero by a large segment of the Orthodox community. The Orthodox rabbi of the Young Israel of Ocean Parkway, where Kahane’s funeral was held, referred to him as a tzaddik, or saint. … What predisposes Orthodoxy to Kahanism? Why were so few prominent Orthodox rabbis willing to publicly condemn and ostracize him? Why, after all, is Orthodoxy amenable to a theology of vengeance and violence? Herein, we can only sketch tentative responses to such questions.

First, consider the demographic distinctiveness of the Orthodox community. Orthodox Jews tend to live in urban areas and, due to the rampant crime and threat of assault in inner-city neighborhoods, readily view themselves as victims in need of a champion. The Orthodox community was also devastated by the Holocaust. And many survivors, in the wake of the Holocaust, have identified themselves as Orthodox. This makes for a community with little or no trust in the “other.” These survivors took to heart Kahane’s message that “all goyim are out to get you” and “you can only rely on yourselves.”

Second, one needs to take into account the psychological characteristics of Orthodox belief. Decades of public disparagement of Orthodoxy and predictions of its imminent demise have left Orthodox believers with a reservoir of smoldering anger toward other Jews and the world at large. And due to their particular experience, Orthodox Jews have internalized the negative stereotype of Jews as totally powerless. Kahane exploited these feelings of shame and anger, and, since he spoke the language of Orthodoxy, was accepted as a savior who restored Jewish pride to the downtrodden Orthodox.

Finally, in matters of theological doctrine, Orthodoxy proved to be a congenial setting in which Kahane could lend religious credibility to his racism. Since Kahane consistently quoted biblical and rabbinic sources to bolster his arguments, Orthodox rabbis were reluctant to criticize him. For to do so would have meant admitting that some Jewish teachings are indeed racist, hateful, and immoral, and therefore must be reinterpreted—either changed or rejected. For some, this basic failure of theological nerve merged with a deeper feeling that Kahane had accurately pinpointed the primitive underbelly of Judaism; that his reading, based as it was on tradition, was actually correct.

And Orthodoxy has seized upon those elements of our tradition that lend themselves to such interpretations. The Book of Joshua and the commandment to conquer the land have invested traditional Judaism with a rationalized violent impulse. In fact the only manifestations of organized Jewish violence since the establishment of the state of Israel have come from within the ranks of Orthodoxy: I refer to the Shabbat stone-throwing practiced by ultra-Orthodox Jews; and to the Jewish underground (mach teret) that plotted to blow up the mosques atop the Temple Mount and murdered several Arab students in cold blood. …

The challenge for all Jews is to reclaim their tradition and decisively uproot, once and for all, the Jewish teachings of contempt that have attracted so many followers to Kahane’s message.

Read the entire article at www.tikkun.org/tikkunat30