By Fern Sidman

Several hundred people gathered at the Ocean Avenue Jewish Center on Sunday, November 15th to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L, founder of the Jewish Defense League and member of the Israeli parliament. Bom in Brooklyn in 1932, Rabbi Kahane was the son of Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga HaCohen Kahane, a prominent and erudite Torah scholar. He received his rabbinical ordination at the renowned Mirrer Yeshiva and obtained a law degree from New York Law School. In 1968, he founded the Jewish Defense League; an activist organization dedicated to protecting Jewish lives throughout the world. The ideology of the movement was predicated on Torah precepts and the JDL educated young Jews to comprehend and act upon the concept of Ahavat Israel (love of Jews). Among the issues that the JDL championed was the cause of Soviet Jewry; organizing massive political demonstrations at Soviet consulates, embassies, trade offices and airlines, demanding that the Jews of the Soviet Union be allowed to emigrate to Israel.

The JDL is considered by many as an intrepid movement that “changed the course of Jewish history” through it’s willingness to confront anti-Semites of all stripes including neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and radical Islamists. On a local level, the JDL organized street patrols throughout the New York area when Jewish homes, businesses, cemeteries, yeshivos and community centers were under siege by the changing demographics of the area. Young people in the JDL also learned to appreciate their heritage as Jews as the movement sponsored classes and seminars on Jewish identity, Jewish history, and Torah concepts as part of a larger campaign to wage battle against the rising tide of assimilation, intermarriage and alienation.

In 1984, Rabbi Meir Kahane was elected to the Israeli Knesset as part of the Kach party and propounded the vision of removing the malignant Arab population from Israel in order to preserve the Jewish character of the state. On November 5, 1990, Rabbi Kahane was assassinated at the age of 58 by El Said Nosair, an Egyptian terrorist who was later implicated in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Among the speakers memorializing the legacy of Rabbi Kahane were Rabbi Herbert Bomzer of the Young Israel of Ocean Parkway, Rabbi Moshe Yitzchok Berg of the Ocean Avenue Jewish Center, Meir Jolowitz, former national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, Yossi Alon, a Jewish activist and the featured speaker was Pastor James David Manning of the ATLAH ministries in Harlem.

“With every mitzvah that Rabbi Kahane performed he created angels to protect the Jewish people” declared Rabbi Bomzer, and “we too, who are gathered here today to continue the work that he dedicated his life to; namely the survival of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people are also creating angels” he continued. Meir Jolowitz called Rabbi Kahane a man of “courage, prescience and fortitude” who defied the slings and arrows of his detractors and stood up for what was right in the eyes of G-d and for Torah. Yossi Alon, a Jewish activist who had been influenced by the teachings of Rabbi Kahane said, “He always took a personal interest in me and when I wanted to make aliya to Israel he helped me in every way, irrespective of his demanding schedule. He truly loved each and every Jew in such a personal way.”

The featured speaker of the yahrzeit was Pastor James David Manning, a minister with a church in Harlem, whose impassioned address drew frequent audience applause. “Since I was a young man, I always respected and admired Rabbi Meir Kahane. I never considered him to be a racist or any of the pejorative labels that were cast on him by the black community. He was a man of G-d, a man who loved Zion, and we gentiles should know that the bible enjoins us to bless the Jewish people, for whoever blesses them will be blessed and whoever curses them will be cursed”, intoned Pastor Manning. “This is the first time that I am speaking in a Jewish synagogue and I am so proud to be here honoring Rabbi Kahane; a man who had the strength and tenacity to stand up for what for his people and his G-d.”