The Last Prophet 009 :

Rabbi Meir Kahane

Uncomfortable Questions

For

Comfortable Jews

By Rav. Meir Kahane
Written in 1988

“Defamation is the last refuge of frightened non-thinkers…Those who cannot respond…vilify.”

1. For nearly twenty centuries the Jewish people were without a homeland of their own and, thus enjoyed such minority “benefits” as Inquisitions, crusades, pogroms, and Auschwitz. FINALLY through G-D’s mercy, they have a land of their own, where they can determine their own fate and kept their own unique identity. But Israel is, of course a democracy, and you, as a good Jew, totally committed democracy, would never have it any other way…

Question: Do you, therefore think that Arab citizens of Israel have a right to peacefully and through coexistence, become a majority and, then, democratically, vote Israel out of existence as a Jewish state? The Arab birthrate is nearly three times higher than that of the Jews in Israel. The number of Jewish immigrants coming to Israel is at an all time low, while the many more Jews leaving the country for the west. (Note: Essentially, the Jewish population has only grown at the required rate because of immigration, while the Arab population has steadily grown because of a high Arab birthrate.) How many Arabs will there be in Israel in 10 years, in 20 years? How many will sit the Knesset? How many will sit on the committee on foreign affairs and security and listen to confidential reports from the Chief of staff on the Syrian threat? Perhaps the Chief of staff will be Arab? Why not, Democrat?

Question: The Declaration of Independence of Israel, of course, guarantees equal political rights for all its citizens, Jews and Arabs. This is democracy.
The Declaration of Independence of Israel guarantees that Israel shall always be a Jewish State. That is Zionism.
Under the first paragraph, of course, the Arabs have a right to democratically become a majority and create and Arab state just as Jews created a Jewish one in 1948. Under the second paragraph, of course, Jews have a right to prevent the Arabs from ending the Jewish, Zionist state even though they become a majority through democracy. Which paragraph do you read? Does the Declaration of Independence of Israel create a state of Jews or a state of schizophrenia?

Question: The Law of Return, passed by Ben-Gurion, grants automatic citizenship in the state of Israel to Jews only. Was Ben-Gurion a racist? Was Rabbi Meir Kahane ZT”L?
Rabbi Meir Kahane ZT”L sponsored a law in the Knesset forbidding the transfer of national land in Israel to non-Jews. The by-laws of the Jewish National Fund state that “the ownership of national land in Eretz Israel is that of the Jewish people forever. These lands are to be given to be worked and rented to Jews and shall not sub-leased.” Do you think that the Jewish National Fund is racist? Was Kahane?

Question: Rabbi Meir Kahane ZT”L sponsored a Knesset bill forbidding intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. The Torah explicitly forbids the same thing (Deuteronomy 7). Rabbi Meir Kahane ZT”L bill was thrown out as “racist”. Will you therefore, throw it out of your synagogue or temple?

Thousands of Jewish women are married to Arabs and other thousands live with them, without the benefit of marriage. They have tens of thousands of children (Jewish by Jewish law, Arab in practice). The former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, has not only refused to condemn intermarriage in Israel between Jews and Arabs but has praised the mixed Jewish-Arab commune of Nve Shalom which is the center of assimilation in Israel, as a “ray of light in the Middle East” Are you proud of this man, who was also the first President to attend the Communist party convention where a message from Arafat condemning the aggressive Zionist state was read?

Question: As in the case of most Jews, you are convinced that the Israeli Arab is a loyal citizen of the country. Do you really think he loves living in a country that is officially proclaimed “The Jewish State”? That has a Law of Return, which applies to Jews only and not to Arabs? That has a national, Ha’tikva, which speaks of “the soul of a Jew yearning”? Do you think that on Independence Day he happily celebrates his defeat? Do you think that he is an imbecile?

Question: Do you think that by raising the Arab’s living standard – giving him electricity, plumbing, and higher education – he will be a “good” Arab? That you can buy his national pride with and indoor toilet? That when he becomes the majority he will allow Israel to remain a Jewish state? How much contempt can you have for the Arab?

Rabbi Meir Kahane

Question: Tens of thousands of ex-soldiers are unemployed in Israel because employers would rather hire Arabs at coolie wages. A wave of emigration from the county of those young soldiers is taking place. The Talmud proclaims: “The poor of your people come first”. Is that racist? Are you satisfied with the present situation? How many more Israeli taxi-drivers do you want to see in New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles?

Question: Along list of Jews murdered within the boundaries of Eretz Israel and the pre-1967 boundary grows every week, as yet another one is murdered. Soldiers have been murdered as they hitchhike; Jews are afraid to travel alone at night, and parents do not allow their children to freely in the streets in the evening. Do you think that this is the Zionist dream? Did we leave the fear of the ghetto and exile to build a Hebrew-speaking ghetto of fear? How many Arabs have been murdered by Jews while hitchhiking? How many Arab children have been raped and murdered by Jews? Whose country is it?

Question: In every Jewish bus in Israel there is a little sign that reads: “Watch out for suspicious objects”. People look under their sears, nervously. If a suspicious object is found – panic breaks out, Jews flee, the police come, and the area is closed off. Have you ever traveled on an Arab bus in Hebron or in Shchem? Why is there no little sign in those buses? Is it not a pleasure to able to ride free from fear – on an Arab bus? Are we normal?

Question: The liberals and leftist of Israel and the U.S. say that the reason why there is no peace is because of the “occupied lands of 1967”. In the 1920’s and 20’s, the years before Kahane-Kach, Kahane Chai, the years before the State of Israel, the Arabs massacred, raped, liquidated hundred of Jews (including 67 in one day in Hebron). What did they want then, when there were no “fascists” and “racists” like Kahane to incite them? Do you think that the massacres of 1929 were caused by the refusal of the Jews to give up the “occupied lands” of 1967? When the Arabs turned down the U.N. plan for an Arab and Jewish state in 1947, was that because of their anger over 1967? Do you believe that there is a need for a national couch for the Jewish liberals and leftists?

Question: Do you know that when 800,000 Sephardic Jews began pouring into Israel from an Exile where they never knew crime – thanks to their religious values that gave them spiritual and national strength – they were deliberately placed in irreligious institutions and kibbutzim where Judaism was ripped from them? That this was because the leftists feared that the immigrants would vote for other parties? That because of this, the overwhelming majority of criminals in Israel today are Sephardic Jews who were spiritually destroyed by the left? Do you think that along with Israel’s Holocaust day that commemorates the physical destruction of Jews by gentiles, there might be a second Holocaust Day to perpetuate the spiritual destruction of Jewish souls, by Jews?

Question: Any number of arrogant ignoramuses – whether they know anything about Judaism or not – have flatly stated that “Judaism” preachers absolute equality between Jews and non-Jews and is committed to democracy. First of all, do you believe that people who do not observe Judaism have the moral intellectual right to bring down precepts of a Judaism they reject? Secondly, does the Reform or Conservative Rabbi who does not believe that the Torah is Divine, G-D’s Law, but who decides for himself (herself?) what is “ethical” and “right”, have any right to talk about “Judaism”? Or, if his name is Cohen, should be not rather speak for himself and quote “Cohenism”? If people invent “ethics”, why be Jewish? Why not be “ethicalist?”along with your rabbi? In fact, who then, needs rabbis?

Question: In this connection, if Judaism is not based on Divine Law that insists that Jews observe ALL the laws, and your child asks you why he/she should obey any laws, could you tell him/her? If he/she wants to put an end to “tribalism” and “differences” and wants to be not Jewish, but a “human being”, could you answer him/her? If the average secular and non-observant Israeli youngster met a gentile who he/she wished to marry, could the average parent give him/her a rational NON-RACIST reason not to? Could you give one to your child who asks: “If all human beings are equal, brothers and sisters, and if the Torah is not G-D’s absolute, direct word, does not the very fat that the leaders in the Reform – Conservative, insist upon being “Jewish” create a barrier between us and the non-Jews?” Is that good? Would it not be better to be “human beings with no barriers”? Why not marry a nice, ethical, intelligent, pretty or handsome gentile without conversion at all? Why not just be “ethical” without reference to Jew or non-Jew?

Question: The essential difference between torah Judaism and Reform – Conservatism is that Orthodoxy believes that the Torah AS IS was actually, literally given by G-D to the Jewish people at the literal Revelation at Sinai. Whether you agree or do not, it must be admitted that if that IS so, it is certainly the compelling reason to be a Jew and thus different from other people (and of course, to observe all the Divine Laws of that Torah). More. Despite the fact that Reform denies that G-D appeared at Mt. Sinai and literally Revealed Himself and the Torah, at their convention in Jerusalem (June 30, 1983) they declared: “We believe that G-D has ordained a religious purpose for the people of Israel which distinguishes it from the nations of the earth”. As liberal humanists, ARE YOU NOT appalled at this rank racism and parochialism? If G-D did not appear and tell us this, how do we know – that we were “chosen”? If the Torah is not Divine, absolute truth, how do we hallow books that have “barbaric” and “archaic” portions in them? If ethics are our yardstick are there not gentile works that are ethical and beautiful? Is it not an emotional cowardice on the part of the Reform – Conservative leaders and parents that prevents them from breaking with narrowness and becoming simply human being?

Question: According to Reform’s Lenn Report (1972), no less than 14% of your rabbis admit to being atheist or agnostics. What kind of RELIGIOUS movement can spawn such “rabbis”? Is it not better to have an honest atheist with no ties to a temple than this kind of confusion? Furthermore, another 14% admitted to a non-traditionalist belief in G-D, similar to that on one of Reforms leading rabbis, Roland Gittelson, stated: “I don’t believe in miracles; I don’t believe that G-D is a person or a discrete being… I believe that G-D is a force, an intelligence.” (Reform Judaism, Winter ’83)
Now, TRUTHFULLY, do you know what this means? Is it intellectually honest? Is it not more logical and honest to say as Orthodox do, that G-D controls all destiny, performs miracles, and is the G-D of History? Or just honestly admit that He does not really exist as someone you can pretty to and stop going to Temple?

Question: In the face of all this, would you be surprised to know that while Judaism commands us to respect the non-Jew who has accepted Monotheism and basin human laws, and enjoins us to treat him with love and ensure his basic, social, economic, and religious rights, it forbids and non-Jew from holding any position of authority in Israel? That a non-Jew cannot be a citizen or hold office in the Knesset or any other position of power over Jews? That a non-Jew who accepts this must be allowed to live with his basic personal rights in Israel and then treated with decency and respect, but one who is not prepared to accept this status is not allowed to live in the Land of Israel? Have you ever studied the Talmud and Maimonides? Would you like to check the sources? Has your rabbi? Would he even know where to begin to look?

Question: Does a Jewish state that is tottering, crumbling, and beset by crisis in every single sphere of life – the economic, the social, the military, the moral, not understand that Jewish destiny rests only on our commitment to G-D and Torah? That we Jews are not an ordinary people and our state not an ordinary state? That what will be for Jews and Israel, either glorious redemption or terrible tragedy, depends on our return to G-D? That a terrible, black cloud hovers over us and that time runs out?

Question: Judaism see the liquidation of the Exile and total Jewish return to the Land of Israel as a basic concept and commandment. More, it decrees that the Jewish communities that refuse to return home will not survive the Exile. Does the growing and burning wave of Jew-hatred in the world ring a warning bell? Will you follow the disastrous Jewish leadership, which was so silent during the Holocaust, so silent for 50 years on the Soviet Jewish issue? Will you let them destroy you too? Or will you follow Judaism and come home to Israel, NOW?

Question: Has any of this made any impression on you? Does your rabbi, Jewish leader. Synagogue, UJA fundraiser, raise these issues, or just money?

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