I am always very appreciative of the positive feedback for my articles that I receive over time. A recurrent theme I hear that is very meaningful to me is that I write what most people are thinking. That might be the most important role of a columnist: to express that which most people believe but don’t find the ability or venue to express.
I don’t intend to be controversial; in fact, I loathe being in the limelight for a controversial issue. Yet, sometimes I find myself at the center of controversy. This is because I am passionate about my convictions, even though they may be at odds with political or religious correctness.
Perhaps the most controversial figure in the Jewish community in modern times was Rabbi Meir Kahane Hy”d. As one of his books is titled, he raised “uncomfortable questions for comfortable Jews.”
Personally, during his lifetime, I did not subscribe to some of his teachings about Jewish resistance to anti-Semitism. “Every Jew a .22” was his famous motto. I believe that violence begets violence and does more harm than good. Today, it may well be that my outlook on that has evolved due to the naked anti-Semitism being practiced and tolerated in our streets and universities. I only met Rabbi Kahane one time, and that was on line at Kosher Delight in Manhattan. We discussed his Kach movement but nothing of major consequence. The next time I came near him was at his funeral in Brooklyn, following his tragic assassination in 1990.
Beyond a doubt, like him or abhor him, he was the most prescient Jew of our times. Almost everything he warned against came to fruition. He stated repeatedly that the Arabs in the liberated territories will prove to be a “thorn in our side to harass you in the Land in which we dwell,” based on BaMidbar (33:55). His call to expel the Arabs from these territories earned him the scorn of almost every established Jew and led to his party’s expulsion from the Knesset on the grounds that he was racist. (Yet, the Knesset had no such assessment for the Arab parties such as Balad, which openly sided with the enemy in its hatred of Jews.)
Recently, I received a stunning video clip, as it clearly showed his understanding of events to unfold for Jews years later. I don’t know what year the debate took place, but in the clip, you see Rabbi Kahane facing a then-young Alan Dershowitz, who was a major spokesman for liberal Judaism at the time. The topic was Jewish support for the abolition of the Apartheid government in South Africa to be replaced with the government of the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela.
Rabbi Kahane stated that he “despises the current government,” but the question is: Will the government of the ANC to follow be good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? He predicted that the new government will ditch the current government’s support for Israel and will become a “viciously anti-Israel government” and will join the other countries of Africa in their radically anti-Israel stand. Turning to Dershowitz with a raised voice, he said, “We as Jews must do what is best for Jews.”
Nu? Did he not tragically prove to be entirely right? The South African government has taken the lead role in bringing Israel to the International Court in The Hague, accusing Israel of practicing genocide as it defends itself against the Hamas barbarians.
As recently as last April, Israel saved a good part of South Africa by sharing with it the Israeli ingenuity of “drip irrigation” to save their withering fields (See the South African Jewish Report, April 27, 2023). This is the big thanks we get.
Was Meir Kahane a navi (prophet)? Highly doubtful. The Chazal (Bava Basra 12a) tell us that, since the destruction of the [First] Temple, prophecy was removed from the prophets and given to scholars (chachamim) instead – “…and a scholar is even greater than a prophet,” concludes that Gemara. The commentaries abound as to why that would be. (See Ramchal in Derech Hashem.)
I don’t wish to assess Rabbi Kahane’s scholarship, but he certainly was a wise man, derided or not. His vision of the future was born from a true love of Israel and the Jewish people. Those who truly love the Jewish people have an inherent intuition as to what is good and what is bad for Jews. If you ask me, the events of the last 50 years have ironically proved Rav Kook, the Satmar Rav, and Rabbi Kahane, zichronam li’vrachah, correct, each in his own respect.
As an aside, my father went to visit the Gerrer Rebbe (the Beis Yisrael) in the summer following the Six-Day War in 1967. Everyone was understandably euphoric following Israel’s stunning victory over a multitude of Arab countries. The Kosel and Judea and Samaria were returned to Jewish hands. But the Rebbe understood what others did not. He told my father, “Yetz fangt un di richtiger tzaros – Now the real troubles will begin.” My father was puzzled by that statement for years, until he saw the unprecedented terror and political turmoil emanating from those liberated territories.
My point here is not to laud Meir Kahane, but to show that if we remain true to Torah and its values, we will have an understanding of what’s best for Jews and their future. Any deviance from that will only be in the wrong direction, as the Left has made plainly clear.
I know I’m leaving myself open to question, because we have seen in our own time and prewar Europe that some of our greatest chachamim apparently erred, while people like Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who warned about the disaster facing European Jewry, was proven sadly right. It is my firm belief that Hashem shifts the ability to forecast to others, as seen following the Beis HaMikdash. However, it only remains with Jews who really love other Jews. That Jabotinsky did.
How often have I heard, “Why don’t Jews have a Sharpton to speak up for us?” I always answer that we did – in Meir Kahane – but the Jews marginalized him. I include myself in saying that we Jews do not have it in our DNA to be outspokenly defiant against society. But the Kahane message still should ring loudly in our ears. It may save us from future tzaros.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.
