Meir Kahane: Encyclopedia II - Meir Kahane - Early life

Meir Kahane - Early life

Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1932. He came from a family that adhered to Orthodox Judaism. His father, Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga Kahane, was born in Safed, Palestine in 1905 and studied in yeshivot in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Later he emigrated to America, where he served as rabbi of two congregations. Meir Kahane received rabbinical ordination from the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn. He was fully conversant with the Talmud and Tanakh, and worked as a pulpit rabbi and teacher in the 1960s. Subsequently, he earned a degree in international law from New York University.

As a teenager he became an admirer of Zeev Jabotinsky, who was a frequent guest in his parents' home, and joined the youth wing of Revisionist Zionism called Betar. He personally led protests against Ernest Bevin the British Foreign Secretary who opposed the foundation of Israel on the grounds that Britain should side with the Arab Muslims' aspirations for an independent state. Kahane also organized and launched public demonstrations in the US against the Soviet Union's policy of persecuting Zionist activists and curbing Jewish emigration to Israel. He was a central activist in the "Free Soviet (Russian) Jewry" movement and is widely credited with the release of the Russian refuseniks to Israel.

Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in 1968, purportedly in response to threats made by the Black Panthers movement.

Kahane was also in contact with Joe Colombo, head of the Colombo mafia family, and was with him in 1971 when Colombo was shot dead by the Gallo family. Kahane confirmed his connections in an interview he gave to Playboy magazine in 1972.

In the 1960s Kahane was an editor of the largest Anglo-Jewish weekly, Brooklyn's The Jewish Press and was a regular correspondent for that paper until his death. He appeared often on American radio and television.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki