A Bloody Day In Jerusalem - 1989

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990

Volume 6

“Beyond Words” is a newly-published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.

“Beyond Words” also includes a number of extra features:

Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.

Index of articles by subject, title, and Torah sources.

If you are interested in buying this new collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane's writings, write to Levi Chazan at: Levi1@hotmail.com.  For people living outside of Israel “Beyond Words” will shortly be sold by Amazon.com

A BLOODY DAY IN JERUSALEM

The Rabbi (Sotah 46) comment on the Biblical law concerning the finding of the body of a murdered Jew with his murderer unknown.  The law decrees that the respected elders of the nearest town or city come out to the place of the murder and declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood!”  Meaning: the elders, the leaders, must declare before man and G-d that they did everything possible to insure that this Jew would not be murdered.

I have just spent two days of my life in an Israeli prison.  Two more days.  And I say, unequivocally, that what happened in Jerusalem last week, as two Jews were murdered and the police protected the murderer and other Arabs even as they tear-gassed Jews, is the clearest evidence that this Jewish government can never say, “Our hands did not shed this blood.”  For surely they did, by a policy that is not only un-Jewish, but sheer madness.

I arrived shortly after the two murders.  But first consider its circumstances.  The murders took place in broad daylight, a little before 11A.M., with tens of people in the street.  It took place in Jerusalem’s main street, Jaffa road.  It took place across the street from the main Post Office.  And it took place around the corner from the main police station, in the Russian Compound.

And there is more.  The murderer, according to the police has “a security background.”  Meaning, he was arrested in the past for terrorist and nationalist involvement.  Arrested, freed, and allowed to remain in the country.  He had spent the night before at the Al Aksa Mosque that desecrates the Temple Mount and, there, listening to the Moslem hate and incitement, decided to murder Jews.

The Arab approached the bus station on Jaffa Road and without warning pulled out a knife and stabbed Nissim Levi and Kalman Vardi as well as three other Jews.  Kalman Vardi died on the spot.  He was 76.  Nissim Levi also died there.  He was 91.  One of the seriously wounded was a woman of 81.  As the Arab fled, he was caught, and as an infuriated Jewish crowd attempted to get him, a policeman fell on the Arab, covered him with his body and saved his life.  Police then physically beat up Jews and drove the Arab away.   

When I arrived shortly thereafter, furious Jews were milling about, frustrated, bitter, impotent.  I climbed on a railing and spoke to them.  I said that things could not continue this way.  I said that Arabs were not the problem but rather the Jews in power, the government that was so impotent, the leftists who give such moral, financial and legal support to the Arabs, the Israeli news media that so encourages them.  I said that until Arabs are dealt with with a heavy hand, Jews will continue to be murdered in their own land in increasing numbers.   

I began marching east, towards the Old City.  But now hundreds, if not more, had gathered and walked behind me.  The police reinforcements were arriving, and as we reached the end of Jaffa Road, the police official in charge of the operation, Natan Kremersky, stopped me and said: “If you go further there will be blood.”  Thinking he meant that the Jews would shed Arab blood, I said: “If you had done that, things might have been different.”  “No”, he said, “I mean that we will use force against you.”

When I informed the crowd, they were so furious that they shouted, “Go ahead.  We will follow you.”  We began marching toward the Old City and as we neared the walls, a solid line of police horses and others with helmets and clubs barred the way.  More ominously, they had their gas masks on and we could see the gas guns aiming at us.

As we came face to face with the police, the head of the Jerusalem Patrol, known as “Velvel” (from a religious family in Jerusalem, though he is no longer so), raised a portable bullhorn and shouted: “This is an illegal gathering.  I will give you a reasonable time to disperse.  You have three minutes.”

I approached him and said: “If your grandfather would be here, he would slap you in the face.”  Velvel reddened but did not reply.  At that point, with not more than a minute elapsed, I saw Kremersky approach Velvel and say something to him.  Suddenly, without warning, the horses charged the crowd with tear gas blasting.  I received a full blast in the face and the police began hitting Jews.  My people dragged me away; I could hardly breathe.  The nearest building was the one used as a court by the municipality and the people inside opened the doors, giving us water and muttering against the police.  

We remained for about half an hour and then, with my eyes burning but able to see, I walked down Jaffe Road with a number of Kach people.  The police were there, in force still, and as I passed they arrest us.

I spent the next 48 hours, two full days, in a small cell with six other Kach members.  The fact that the Jewish prisoners and the police inside treated us as kings made no difference.  Inside with us were some 80 Arabs, eating, drinking and being kept there at Jewish expense.  The police told me that they were afraid to mistreat them because the news media and the Red Cross would immediately intervene and they (the police) would be reprimanded and suspended.  Their frustration was evident as was their growing weariness.

It was clear to me sitting in that foul-smelling cell with a toilet in the room (a “Turkish toilet,” as it is known, with only a hole over which the person much perch) that the State of Israel was collapsing and that the prime culprits were the “elders,” the leaders, the government.

It was also clear to me that there must be a change, a fundamental change in the very system of the government, from the present fraudulent democracy (which is, of course, not democracy at all) to strong government that will save us from ourselves.

As I was freed, a few hours before Shabbat, I heard over the radio that Shamir had visited the wounded and said, “Jews must defend themselves and not leave the attackers in one piece.”

I thought to myself:  How long will we continue to accept this paragon of hypocrisy and disaster?  And when a Jew does defend himself and shoots an Arab, what does the government of Shamir do to him?  It arrests him and places him on trial.  The problem is not Arabs; it is Jews.  Jews such as Shamir and Arens and Rabin – not to mention the leftists – whose babbling lack of policy allows an intifada to continue for 18 months (!) and for Jews to be murdered in their own cities.  They must go.  Or there will be terrible things in Israel.   

Written May 12, 1989

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ALONE - 1989

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990

Volume 6

“Beyond Words” is a newly-published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.

“Beyond Words” also includes a number of extra features:

Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.

Index of articles by subject, title, and Torah sources.

If you are interested in buying this new collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane's writings, write to Levi Chazan at: Levi1@hotmail.com.  For people living outside of Israel “Beyond Words” will shortly be sold by Amazon.com

ALONE

The United States decision to speak with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a thing that in effect means recognition of the terrorists as the party that Washington looks to as the representative of the “Palestinian people,” is a thing that should shock no one.  And yet it does.

It shocks and angers Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres coalitionally and it shocks the twins Moshe Arens and Yitzhak Rabin and it shocks American Jewish leaders.  It should not, and the fact that it doesn’t speaks volumes for the impotence and lack of Jewishness of those who are the leaders (G-d help us!) of the Jewish state and people.

The Arab-Jewish ongoing struggle must, of necessity, become a thing of which the United States public and Administration will either grow weary or, seeing it as a threat to their own interests, will take steps to attempt to end it.  The “Palestinian” uprising is only the latest in a series of events that have moved both Washington and the American public to a more hostile attitude toward Israeli policies (or to be more exact, its total lack of any policy).  Indeed, the truth is that the history of U.S.–Israel relations is far less strewn with roses than the Arab lobby in the United States would have people believe.

From its inception, indeed even before that, the United States placed immense difficulties in the path of a new Jewish state.  American withdrawal of support for the United Nations Partition Plan in April 1948 was followed by an embargo on all weapons to the Middle East, which hurt only the Jews.  U. S. Secretary of State George Marshall warned the future first Foreign Minister of Israel, Moshe Shertok (Sharett), not to declare a Jewish state, since the U.S. would not help save it from the Arab armies.  President Eisenhower, in 1956, compelled Israel to give up the Sinai and Gaza to Nasser and brutally threatened to prevent money from the UJA and Israel Bonds from reaching the Jewish state.  Not a bullet was sold to Israel by the United States until the early 1960s, and in the crucial weeks before the Six-Day war of 1967, as Israel’s fate hung in the balance, the United States refused to implement its promise of support made by Eisenhower, in the event that Egypt again closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and blocked the Gulf of Eliat.  It was fear of United States reaction that moved Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan to make the criminal step of allowing Egypt and Syria to strike the first blow in the Yom Kippur War and thus doom 4,000 Jewish soldiers to die.  And it was the United States that prevented the Israelis from destroying Egyptian power, their Third Army, when Israel had them surrounded. 

This American policy of snatching the fruits of victory from Israel continued in the Lebanese war, as the golden opportunity to physically liquidate the terrorists and their leaders in Beirut was frustrated by Ronald Regan’s pressure.  Since then, the United States has condemned Israel regularly over the intifada, and Secretary of State Shultz, a man with a reputation as a friend of Israel, exerted enormous pressure on the Israelis to agree to a disastrous International Peace Conference.  And now, of course, recognition of the PLO.

So let there be no surprise.  It will get worse, and there is nothing the secularists of the Hellenist State of Israel can do about it, except.  Except weep and wail and protest and capitulate.  Or understand what being Jewish is; what the miracle of the rise of a Jewish state is; what faith in the G-d of Israel is.

To be alone is the destiny of the Jew ever since it was decreed, “Lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone” (Numbers 23:9)  For to be alone is to do two things.  One, it is to create a separate Jewish society and state, free of the influences of the gentile culture and abominations.  Two, it is to manifest in the most graphic way possible the total faith in the G-d of Israel that is the foundation of the Jewish people and of Torah itself.  Indeed, the final redemption of the Jewish people cannot come as long as the Jew has even one ally upon whom he leans.  And that is why, whether the Jew approves of not, the All Mighty will guarantee that there will be no ally, that Israel will be isolated.

For as long as the Jew has even one ally, he will always convince himself that his salvation was due to that gentile.  A secularized people that has lost its moorings, its anchor of Judaism, has lost, too the ability to even conceive of life in a way that transcends what it calls “logic” and “practicality” and “reality.”  It will always cast its bread upon the waters of the gentile ally, and it is only when they are so soggy that they sink, and the Jew is left starving, that there exists even the remotest possibility of his returning to the one and only hope – the G-d of Israel.

And so Israel slides towards isolation.  Not the isolation that G-d demands, the deliberate move of the Jew towards separation and isolation and trust in the All Mighty.  But the forced isolation of nations moving away from Israel either through support of its enemies or by taking an “even-handed” stance.  The ally, American is becoming much less than that today, and tomorrow it will be worse.

But say not “worse,” because in Jewish terms it is better. Best. Salvation and redemption for the Jew will come only when he is isolated and alone with his G-d.  It will be whether the Jew likes it or not.

Written January 1989

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Shavuot Divrei Torah - 1977

K A H A NE

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea

Shavuot, Sivan 5737  -  May 1977

DIVREI TORAH

           

We are told that when the L-rd desired to give the Torah to the Jewish people, instead of choosing some lofty and majestic mountain, He selected Sinai, a small, humble little mount barely more than a hill.  His purpose in this symbolic act was to show that man must turn his back on overbearing pride, must reject a false ego.

           

It is related in the name of the Gerer Rebbe:  G-d’s intentions are indeed laudable.  Yet, if He intended to show that man must not be a mountain and must turn down false pride, why was the Torah not given in a valley?

           

The answer is clear, the answer is bold:  It is not enough to reject overbearing pride.  Too much humbleness is, itself wrong.  Man should, man must possess some pride in his being – otherwise he is not a man

           

I never cease to be amazed that we continue to be valleys.  I never cease wondering at our choosing the way of the meek.  One would imagine that after all the “help” we have failed to receive; we would have remembered the lesson of the mountain.

           

These are sad times when we must still – just for the moment – the voice of Jacob, and for the sake of Jewish honor, of Jewish protection, don the hand of Esau.

           

Vandals attack a Yeshiva – let that Yeshiva attack the vandals.  Should a gang bloody a Jew, let a Jewish group go looking for the gang.  This is the way of pride – not evil pride, but the pride of nation, of kinship – the pride of the mountain.

           

There are those who will protest:  This is not the Jewish way.  And yet since when has it been a Mitzvah to be punished and beaten?  Since when is it a Kiddush HaShem (Sanctification of G-d} to be spat upon and smeared with vegetables?  It is not a Kiddush HaShem, it is quite the opposite.  It is a disgrace to the pride of our people, our G-d.  More important – there is a rule in the hoodlum jungle:  The more the victim backs away, the more the hoodlum moves forward.

           

The same holds true for all other areas of Jewish persecution, Jewish teachers are being harassed and forced from jobs; Jewish merchants are robbed, looted and driven from their business establishments.

           

Is the way out to bow to extremism and Nazi tactics?  Can one buy his freedom and life from the psychotics and extremists?  I think not!

Up from the valley and up to the Mount, Jewish rights are not cheap and Jewish defense is not wrong.  This is the lesson of the Mount.

Israel and deep desire for the dismantlement were obvious to all who wished to see.

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