Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane

Who was Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane?

Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane was a rabbi and the son of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Born in New York City, he emigrated to Israel with his family at the age of four, in 1971. He was a young Israeli Orthodox Jewish scholar and rabbi who was most famous for his leadership of Kahane Chai, a far-right political party that broke from his father's Kach party after Meir Kahane's assassination in 1990.

Kahane was the author of The Haggada of the Jewish Idea, a commentary based on his father's teachings of the Passover Haggadah read at the Passover Seder. He wrote a Torah portion sheet called Darka Shel Torah that was distributed for the weekly Torah portions. He was several times convicted by Israeli courts for advocating violence against Arabs.

He and his wife Talya were shot and killed near the Israeli settlement of Ofra on 31 December 2000. The Prime Minister's Office subsequently announced the arrest of three members of Force 17 – Talal Ghassan, Marzouk Abu Naim and Na'man Nofel – who were believed to have carried out the attack under the instruction of PLO leader Col. Mahmoud Damra. However, in 2007, Khaled Shawish was arrested for the attack.