An Open Letter To The World by Rabbi Meir Kahane

From Jewish Virtual Library

Rabbi Meir Kahane was born in Brooklyn, NY, on August 1, 1932. His father, Rabbi Charles Kahane, was involved in the Revisionist Zionist movement, and was a close friend of Zev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky. Meir was active in Betar, the militant revisionist youth movement.

Kahane received a degree in International Law from New York University, and ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn. He edited the Jewish Press, and served as a pulpit rabbi and teacher in New York until the mid-1960s. He also partnered with the government in rallying Jewish support for the Vietnam War.

His life's work, however, started in 1968, when he founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Kahane saw many of the poor and elderly Jews living in the inner-city being targeted by criminals; as a result, he set out to change the image of the Jew from "weak and vulnerable" to one of a "mighty fighter, who strikes back fiercely against tyrants." The JDL's controversial methods, which frequently included the threat of, or actual violence, greatly exacerbated the Black-Jewish tension already present in New York City. The JDL also focused on the plight of Soviet Jewry, and coined the phrases "Never again," and "every Jew a .22" to emphasize that Jews would no longer passively ignore the plight of their foreign brethren.

While some saw Kahane's goals as laudable, his actions were often criminal. He spent time in jail after being convicted of conspiring to make bombs.

Kahane and his family moved to Israel in 1971, where he founded the militantly anti-Arab Kach party. The party's platform called for the annexation of all conquered territories and the forcible removal of all Palestinians. Under the auspices of Kach, Kahane continued to lobby for his beliefs in violent ways, and was jailed on several occasions. He was the first Jew in Israel to ever be accused of sedition.

Kahane ran for Knesset and lost in 1976 and 1980, and was finally elected in 1984. His movement continued to grow until, prior to the 1988 Knesset elections, the Kach party was banned from running by a Labor-Likud coalition. The ban was based on an amendment added to Israel's Basic Law that disqualified any candidate whose platform included "incitement to racism." Two years later, Kahane was assassinated in New York City by an Egyptian militant, who was acquitted of the crime on a technicality, but later convicted in relation to the World Trade Center bombing.

During his life, Kahane attempted to spread his message through a variety of forums. He wrote numerous books espousing his opinions; his most famous work, They Must Go, is alternately called a "magnum opus" by Kahane's followers, and compared to Mein Kampf by his detractors. He also founded a seminary in Jerusalem, called the "Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea." The school, which still exists today, attempts to combine a traditional Jewish education with right-wing political activism.

This letter was written in 1980.



The Transcript:

Dear World,

It appears that you are hard to please. I understand that you are upset over us here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry and outraged. Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset over us. Today, it is the brutal repression of the Palestinians; yesterday, it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph, and who therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily.

Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we the Jewish people upset you. We upset a German people, who elected a Hitler and we upset an Austrian people, who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Romanians.  (Emphasis mine)

And we go back a long, long way in history of world upset. We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki, who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders, who on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us. We upset, for centuries, a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through Inquisitions. And we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit.

It is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish State. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you, and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you and thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home, to the same homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.  (Emphasis mine)

Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left you and your Pogroms and Inquisitions and Crusades and Holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state, we continue to upset you.

You are upset that we repress the Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.  (Emphasis mine)

Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel. In 1920, 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered hundreds of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron in 1929.

Dear world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots in 1936-39? Was it because of Arab upset over 1967? And when you, World, proposed a U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a Palestinian State alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that upset stomach caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of upset then?  (Emphasis mine)

The Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who - when they had all the territories they now demand be given them for their state - attempted to drive the Jewish State into the sea. The same twisted faces, the same hate, the same cry of "idbah-al-yahud" - "Slaughter the Jews!" that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel.  (Emphasis mine)

What they failed to do yesterday, they dream of today - but we should not "repress" them. Dear world, you stood by the Holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres. You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction.  (Emphasis mine)

And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians daily dream of that extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well - think of how many times in the past you bothered us.

In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, here is one Jew in Israel who could not care less.

And here is another one!

To the Helen Thomas' and Rosie O'Donalds of the world.  You don't like Israel and Jews too damn bad.  Either live with it, or find another planet to live on.  I prefer you do the second, since it would be more to your liking (And ours too, since we are forced to look at your sorry ass ugly faces!  [Please start wearing a burka!])

The Jews of Israel are not going any where!  We are the indigenous people of the land.  Get used to that fact proven by history, archaeology, and genetics.

We are one people living in our ancestral home!

Now and forever!

You knew you grew up Jewish if:

You watched Ed Sullivan every Sunday night, and your parents laughed out loud at Myron Cohen (if you don't know who Myron Cohen is, don't bother reading any further).

You spent your entire childhood thinking everyone called pot roast "brisket."

You grew up thinking it was normal for someone to shout "Are you okay? Are you okay?" through the bathroom door when you were in there longer than 3 minutes.

Your family dog responded to commands in Yiddish.

Every Saturday morning your father went to the neighborhood deli (called an "appetizing store") for whitefish salad, whitefish ("chubs"), lox (nova if you were rich!), herring, corned beef, roast beef, cole slaw, potato salad, a 1/2-dozen huge barrel pickles, a dozen assorted bagels, cream cheese and rye bread (sliced while he waited) .. all of which would be strictly off-limits until Sunday morning.

Every Sunday afternoon was spent visiting your grandparents and/or other relatives.

You experienced the phenomenon of 50 people fitting into a 10-foot-wide dining room hitting each other with plastic plates trying to get to a deli tray.

You had at least one female relative who penciled on eyebrows which were always asymmetrical.

You thought pasta was stuff used exclusively for Kugel and kasha with bowties.

You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven.

You were as tall as your grandfather by the age seven and a half.

You never knew anyone whose last name didn't end in one of 5 standard suffixes (berg, baum, man, stein and witz.)

You were surprised to discover that wine doesn't always taste like cranberry sauce.

You can look at gefilte fish and not turn green.

Your mother smacked you really hard and continues to make you feel bad for hurting her hand.

You can understand Yiddish but you can't speak it.

You know how to pronounce numerous Yiddish words and use them correctly in context, yet you don't exactly know what they mean. Kinahurra.

You're still angry at your parents for not speaking both Yiddish and English to you when you were a baby.

You have at least one ancestor who is somehow related to your spouse's ancestor.

Your grandparent's newly washed linoleum floor was covered with the NY Times, which your grandparents could not read.

You thought speaking loud was normal.

You considered your Bar or Bat Mitzvah a "Get Out of Hebrew School Free"card.

You think eating half a jar of dill pickles is a wholesome snack.

You're compelled to mention your grandmother's "steel cannonballs" upon seeing fluffy matzo balls served at restaurants.

You buy 3 shopping bags worth of hot bagels on every trip to NYC and ship them home via FedEx. (Or, if you live near NYC or Philadelphia or another Jewish city hub, you drive 3 hours just to buy a dozen "real" bagels.)

Your mother took personal pride when a Jew was noted for some accomplishment (showbiz, medicine, politics, etc.) and was ashamed and embarrassed when a Jew was accused of a crime .. as if they were relatives.

You thought sleepaway college was only where non-Jews went ... Jews went to city schools ... unless they had scholarships or made an Ivy League school.

And finally, you knew that Sunday night and the night after any Jewish holiday was designated for Chinese food.

Jews in London Targets of Anti-Semitic Graffiti

Just when you thought the Dhimmification of London couldn't get more complete, this shows up.

The British capital's ultra-Orthodox community was the brunt of anti-Semitic graffiti last week, with 40 incidents over three days. Slogans such as "Jihad to Israel" and "Jihad to Tel Aviv" were removed by the local council.

Vandals sprayed shops, pavements and walls near four synagogues in the Clapton Common and Stamford Hill area of northeast London.

"Hackney is a tolerant place and we've never seen anything like this before" said Jules Pipe, the mayor of Hackney Borough. "Our graffiti removal teams are working with the police to remove it as quickly as possible to minimize any further distress."

Too late Mayor Pipe. The Jewish community is feeling distressed as you speak. Maybe instead of graffiti removal teams, your government should have Muslim removal teams. It would bring down the graffiti very fast and minimize any further distress as you put it.

David Greenwald from the Belz Bet Hamedrash Synagogue in Clapton Common told the Evening Standard newspaper on Thursday that the close-knit community was shocked.

"This morning I went to synagogue to pray and saw the writing all over everywhere - walls, shops, traffic lights," he said. "Everyone feels scared. Here we do not have any problem with Arabs, there has never been anything like this before, but now we are worried."

Another community member said: "It makes us feel that we are in exile. It could be kids doing it, but even so, it shows something."

Yes it does. It shows the British government's failed immigration policies that gives a free reign to Muslims in the name of Multiculturalism. But we shouldn't fault the Muslim, after all they are a peaceful, loving people. They just want some control of their lives. And our lives, and our laws, and our way of life.

"Obviously the timing of this graffiti suggests that its deliberately tied to Yom Ha'atzma'ut but these are slogans that are sadly quite familiar and have appeared on leaflets in previous years distributed by Islamist groups in the UK," said Mark Gardner, communications director of the Community Security Trust, which provides security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews and represents them to police, government and media on anti-Semitism and security issues.

This wouldn't have happened in the UK if there had been a crackdown on leaflets Islamist groups were handing out. This is what happens when you allow them to do what they want to, say what they want to in the name of religious freedom. Some Freedom. Muslims have the freedom and the Jews the heartache.

Scotland Yard said officers were looking at CCTV footage and forensic teams have recovered a canister of spray paint.

The aren't looking too hard. It would upset their Muslim masters. These crimes like others committed against British Jews will be unsolved. To solve them would expose the lies that the Labour Government has been saying all the time about how Islam is "A Religion of Peace."

Related Articles:

Synagogue walls daubed with anti-Jewish graffiti
"Jihad to Israel" spray-painted on London synagogues

Law of Return?

Every other day Palestinians cry: "We demand a Law of Return! Compensation for that which was stolen from us!"

And the world has agreed with them. Why shouldn't they get a Law of Return/Compensation for what they lost?

They put forth a very compelling argument. They claim that the Israelis forced 700,000 Arabs to flee from their homes in 1948. They stole the land. They didn't give them any compensation for what was stolen. They cry the victim. They've been crying that they were the victims of Israelis (read Jewish) aggression since 1948. And the left has swallowed this lie. After all they had such compelling pictures of their refugees.



How pitiful they look. And if what they said was true, then they should be compensated. But the truth is vastly different from what the liars have cried.



Let me introduce you to Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-1948. A man who embodied the Religion of Peace in its truest form. He instigated the 1929 and 1936 Arab riots in British held Palestine. These riots left 100's of Jews dead, but led to the creation of the Palmach and Haganah. The riots of 1936-1939 led to the infamous White Paper that severely limited Jewish Immigration to Palestine. But that wasn't enough for this man. The moment that Germany was under Hitler's command, this member of the Religion of Peace was contacted by the Nazis. Did he reject them? No. He went in league with them. Visiting Germany and spending World War 2 as a guest of the Nazis. He offered thousands of Palestinian Muslims to fight against the British and for the Nazis. His voice was heard all over the Middle East encouraging Muslims to fight for the Nazis and against the Allies. He openly laughed at the fate of the Jews of Europe and was waiting for his triumphant return to Jerusalem and to be placed in charged of the destruction of the Jews there. His telegram from Himmler, dated 2 November 1943 shows this man's true intentions.


November 2, 1943 Himmler's telegram to Mufti:

'To the Grand Mufti: The National Socialist movement of Greater Germany has, since its inception, inscribed upon its flag the fight against the world Jewry. It has therefore followed with particular sympathy the struggle of freedom-loving Arabs, especially in Palestine, against Jewish interlopers. In the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against it lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between the National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory.'
Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler

Was this man named a war criminal after the war? No. The British were afraid that if they charged him with war crimes, the Arab population would rise up in revolt. So they placed him back in the Middle East where he spewed his hate out at the population. The British placated him further by slowing all Jewish immigration to a halt. So much for high ideals.

And yet he wasn't idle. He conspired with many Arab nations to destroy the fledgling nation of Israel. He broadcasts warnings to the Arabs in the land to leave, so they wouldn't be hurt by the invading Arab armies. He said to them: "Leave now and return later, after our valiant Arab armies are victorious in wiping out all the Jews." So 700,000 Arabs left their homes and businesses. They waited for the victorious Arab armies to liberate them. They are still waiting for the victory.

A tragedy yes, but one of their own making.

At the same time, there was a similar exodus of people. Their leaders didn't tell them to leave their homes and businesses. Their leaders didn't scream hatred at the people. Their leaders wished to live their lives in peace and prosperity. No these weren't the survivors of the Nazi horror, but the 1 million Jews who were kicked out of every Arab nation. What crime did these people commit? Why should they have been singled out for such treatment? The crime that these people committed was the simple one. They were born Jewish. They lived as Dhimmis in Arab lands, second-class citizens.

The leaders of these nations rounded up the whole Jewish populations in their nations and expelled them. They didn't do it nicely, offering compensation or safety. Many were beaten, raped or murdered along the way. No compensation for what was stolen from them. No apology from these nations.



Where did these poor refugees go? Where could they go? The new nation of Israel took almost all the refugees in. Between the years 1948 and 1955 almost 1 million Jews from Arab lands entered Israel.


They lived in shanty towns and tent cities at first. But slowly, the Israelis absorbed these new immigrants. Israel absorbed the expense, money they didn't readily have and spent it wisely. It is estimated that it cost Israel between $12 billion and $15 billion to resettle all the refugees. And what did they get for their money? They received a people who helped to form the basis of Israeli society and culture. They went to school, joined the army, created businesses, and entered politics. They helped to make Israel a vibrant, dynamic nation.


And yet the world has forgotten their misery, the horrors they lived through. They are the Forgotten Refugees. Why? Because they were able to flee to a safe haven. A land where it wasn't a crime to be a Jew. A land where they could live in freedom.

So when the Palestinians cry they want compensation, a law of return, the world must turn to them and say so do these people. They deserve a law of return, compensation. The world should force every Arab nation to absorb their Palestinian brothers into their nation, the way Israel absorbed their Jewish brothers into theirs.

Related article:

The Middle East's Forgotten Refugees
Are Jews Who Fled Arab Lands to Israel Refugees, Too
Why Jews Fled the Arab Countries
Justice For Jews from Arab Countries

A Bit of Humor

A spaceship hovers over the UN building in NY City and through out the world this message is heard in every language:

"We wish to speak to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. A craft will be sent down for him."

The Secretary-General waited upon the roof of the UN for the craft. When it arrives a portal opens and he enters. Within a few minutes the craft flies back to its mother ship.


For days and days the world waits for any news. The media has pundits on predicting what these aliens would want. They argue over what they look like, their customs, etc... Comedians have a field day with the alien jokes. And yet, there still is no news from the ship.

Finally, after 6 days, the craft returns to Earth. A visibly shaken Secretary-General stumbles out of the craft and over to a bank of microphones and cameras. He takes a deep breath and then says:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the world. We have a major problem. Our visitors from above are 7' tall, Jewish, and pissed!"