Meir Kahane

Who was Meir Kahane?

Martin David Kahane, also known as Meir Kahane, was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure, whose work became either the direct or indirect foundation of most modern Jewish militant and extreme right-wing political groups. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset. Kahane gained recognition as an activist for Jewish causes, such as organizing Jewish self-defense groups in deteriorating neighborhoods and the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate. He later became known in the United States and Israel for political and religious views that included proposing emergency Jewish mass-immigration to Israel due to the imminent threat of a "second Holocaust" in the United States, advocating that Israel's democracy be replaced by a state modeled on Jewish law, and promoting the idea of a Greater Israel in which Israel would annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In order to keep Arabs, who he stated would never accept Israel as a Jewish state, from becoming a numerical majority in Israel, he proposed a plan allowing Arabs to leave Israel and receive compensation for their property, and forcibly removing Arabs who refused.