Reviewing the second installment in a projected three-volume biography of the much-hated American rabbi, written by his widow Libby, Elliot Jager reflects on Kahane’s career and his transformation from leader of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) to leader of the (now-illegal) Israeli political party Kach:
Kahane was one of the most influential, selfless, brilliant American Jewish personalities of the post-World War II era. . . . Under Kahane, the JDL was a catalyst pressuring the U.S. Jewish establishment to put Soviet Jewry, Jewish poverty, and urban anti-Semitism higher on its agenda. Kahane in his original JDL incarnation saved the souls of countless impressionable young Jews from terminal ennui if not outright assimilation. . . .
I found the early Kahane mesmerizing. I first appreciated the enormity of the Shoah because he talked about it when others didn’t. Following him into the street from the auditorium of Hunter College chanting “Never Again” and sitting down on Third Avenue and 67th Street near the Soviet UN mission in Manhattan was like an ecstatic-religious experience for me.
But in his [later] Kach incarnation his ideas sounded reactionary and repugnant. And for most people that is how he is remembered: for saying no to tolerance, no to respect for minority rights, no to religious pluralism, and no to compromise with political opponents.
Read more on Jager File: http://elliotjager.blogspot.com/2016/01/book-review-uncompromising-truth-about.html