page_title: Meir Kahane
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Meir Kahane / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Jerusalem, stickers&#160;: Today everybody know that Kahane was right Français&#160;: Vieille ville de Jérusalem, autocollants&#160;: aujourd'hui tout le monde sait que Kahane avait raison Deutsch: Aufkleber in der Altstadt von Jerusalem: Heute wissen es alle: Rabbi Kahane hatte recht עברית: היום כולם יודעים כהנא צדק
context_page_description: Rabbi Meir David HaKohen Kahane was an Israeli-American ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset. His legacy continues to influence militant and far-right political groups active today in Israel.
  Kahane publicized his "Kahanism" ideology, which he claimed was simply Torah Judaism based on halakha, through published works, weekly articles, speeches, debates on college campuses and in synagogues throughout the United States, and appearances on various televised programs and radio shows. He was an intense advocate for Jewish causes, such as organizing defense squads and patrols in Jewish neighborhoods and demanding for the Soviet Union to "release its oppressed Jews". He supported violence against those he regarded as enemies of the Jewish people, called for immediate Jewish mass migration to Israel to avoid a potential "Holocaust" in the United States, supported the restriction of Israel's democracy to its Jewish citizens, hoped that Israel would eventually adopt halakha, and endorsed the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
  Kahane proposed enforcing halakha as codified by Maimonides.
context_section_description: Following Kahane's death, no leader emerged to replace him in the movement. However, the idea of transferring populations, attributed mainly to Kahane, was subsequently incorporated into the political platform of various political parties in Israel, such as Moledet (applying to Arab non-citizen residents of the West Bank) and Yisrael Beiteinu (in the form of population exchange). Two small Kahanist factions later emerged; one under the name Kach, and the other under the name Kahane chai (Hebrew: כהנא חי, literally "Kahane lives [on]"), the second one being led by his younger son, Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane. Neither one was permitted to participate in the Knesset elections by the Central Elections Committee.
  In 1994, following the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre of Palestinian Muslim worshippers in Hebron by Kach supporter Baruch Goldstein, in which 29 Muslim worshipers were killed, the Israeli government declared both parties to be terrorist organizations. The US State Department also added Kach and Kahane Chai to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
  In the 2003 Knesset elections, Herut, which had split off from the National Union list, ran with Michael Kleiner and former Kach activist Baruch Marzel taking the top two spots on the list. The joint effort narrowly missed the 1.5% barrier. In the following 2006 elections, the Jewish National Front, led by Baruch Marzel, fared better, but it also failed to pass the minimum threshold. A follower of Kahane who was involved with Kach for many years, Michael Ben-Ari, was elected to the Knesset in the 2009 elections on renewed National Union list. He stood again in the 2013 elections as the second candidate on the list of Otzma LeYisrael, but the party failed to pass the minimum threshold.
  In 2007, the FBI released over a thousand documents relating to its daily surveillance of Kahane since the early 1960s.
  In 2015, Kahane's grandson, Meir Ettinger, was detained by Israeli law enforcement. He was the alleged leader of the radical Jewish group "The Revolt". In an online "manifesto" echoing some of his grandfather's teachings, Ettinger promotes the "dispossession of gentiles" who live in Israel and the establishment of a new "kingdom of Israel", a theocracy ruled according to the Halacha. Ettinger's writings condemned Israel's government, mainstream rabbis, and the IDF, and also have denounced Christian churches as "idolatry".
  In 2016, Kahane's widow claimed that modern Jewish extremists in Israel do not follow the ideology of her late husband, Rabbi Meir Kahane. She justified that claim by arguing that unlike modern Jewish extremists, Rabbi Kahane had a more mature approach that did not encourage illegal activities.
   The prosecution argued that Arab MK Haneen Zoabi should be banned for denying the Jewish people's existence, and she was banned by the Central Elections Committee, which uses the Kahane precedent. A week later, the ruling was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court. Attempts to ban the Strong Israel and Balad political parties by using the Kahane precedent were also overturned.
  In 2017, The Forward reported that some of Kahane's followers were aligning themselves with white nationalists and the alt-right. Other Kahanists declared that such moves did not reflect Kahane's teachings, and they supported that declaration by arguing that Kahane worked together with African Americans.
caption: Stickers in Hebrew: "Today Everybody Knows: Kahane was Right"
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