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Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical
The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survival
Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990. Shaul Magid provides an in-depth look at this controversial figure, showing how the postwar American experience shaped his life and political thought.
Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race” as a tool to promote Jewish pride. He discusses Kahane’s theory of violence as a mechanism to assure Jewish safety, and traces how his Zionism evolved from a fervent support of Israel to a belief that the Zionist project had failed. Magid examines how tradition and classical Jewish texts profoundly influenced Kahane’s thought later in life, and argues that Kahane’s enduring legacy lies not in his Israeli career but in the challenge he posed to the liberalism and assimilatory project of the postwar American Jewish establishment.
This incisive book shows how Kahane was a quintessentially American figure, one who adopted the radicalism of the militant Left as a tenet of Jewish survival.
Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990. Shaul Magid provides an in-depth look at this controversial figure, showing how the postwar American experience shaped his life and political thought.
Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race” as a tool to promote Jewish pride. He discusses Kahane’s theory of violence as a mechanism to assure Jewish safety, and traces how his Zionism evolved from a fervent support of Israel to a belief that the Zionist project had failed. Magid examines how tradition and classical Jewish texts profoundly influenced Kahane’s thought later in life, and argues that Kahane’s enduring legacy lies not in his Israeli career but in the challenge he posed to the liberalism and assimilatory project of the postwar American Jewish establishment.
This incisive book shows how Kahane was a quintessentially American figure, one who adopted the radicalism of the militant Left as a tenet of Jewish survival.
296 pages, Hardcover
Published October 12, 2021
About the author
Shaul Magid
41 books30 followersThe Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair in Jewish Studies
Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program
My teaching focuses primarily on Kabbala, Hasidism, religious fundamentalism, Israel/Palestine, and modern and American Jewish thought and culture. Areas of interest and research include sixteenth century Kabbala, Hasidism, American Judaism, comparative religion, and contemporary conceptions of Jewish religiosity. I am the editor of God's Voice from the Void: Old and New Essays on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (SUNY Press, 2001), co-editor of Beginning Again: Toward a Hermeneutic of Jewish Texts (Seven Bridges Press, 2002) and author of Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica and Radzin Hasidism (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008) which was awarded the 2008 American Academy of Religion Award for best book in religion in the textual studies category, American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013) and Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). I am the series editor for “Post-Rabbinic Judaisms” for Academic Studies Press. I am also a regular contributor to Tikkun Magazine, Zeek Magazine, Open Zion, and Religion Dispatches.
Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program
My teaching focuses primarily on Kabbala, Hasidism, religious fundamentalism, Israel/Palestine, and modern and American Jewish thought and culture. Areas of interest and research include sixteenth century Kabbala, Hasidism, American Judaism, comparative religion, and contemporary conceptions of Jewish religiosity. I am the editor of God's Voice from the Void: Old and New Essays on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (SUNY Press, 2001), co-editor of Beginning Again: Toward a Hermeneutic of Jewish Texts (Seven Bridges Press, 2002) and author of Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica and Radzin Hasidism (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008) which was awarded the 2008 American Academy of Religion Award for best book in religion in the textual studies category, American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013) and Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). I am the series editor for “Post-Rabbinic Judaisms” for Academic Studies Press. I am also a regular contributor to Tikkun Magazine, Zeek Magazine, Open Zion, and Religion Dispatches.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 3, 2025
The core thesis of this book is that Kahane is a distinctly American persona, a child of the American radicalism of the 60s and 70s and of the Diaspora. This, despite him being known most prominently as the MK who was outseted from the Kenesset and who's main vocal proponents are Israeli right wingers.
The book opens with an anecdote that almost certainly happened in my town, perhaps in my shul, where a Modern Orthodox man (my community) told the author that Kahane was right about everything but only said it not nicely. And to be fair, I think this is a minority though very present feeling among tri-state Modern Orthodox people in Bergen County in particular.
Case in point, the way I came to read this book was being at a neighbors house and being struck by the presence of a large Kahane picture next to a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and seeing on his bookshelf a number of primary and secondary books by/about Kahane. "One of these things is not like the other" and low and behold the owner had been given this book as a gift and "he [Magid] gets Kahane totally wrong" (despite him having only read about 50 pages of the book). So Kahanists definitely are well represented in Modern Orthodoxy, and certainly his ideas are very present.
However, this book is poorly written, especially the first chapter. The first chapter after the introduction is dense and circular and confusing. The rest of the chapters try to be thematic but end up blurring together. And while the core thesis is "Kahane's life is usually read back to front - from Israel to America; he actually should be read front to back, as America to Israel" - the structure of the book just doesn't actually show that. A simpler, more linear orientation would have more clearly shown how the response to Black Power and the 60s and 70s shaped Kahane.
Its a testament to my family and upbringing that I immediately associate the word "Kahane" with "bad guy". My grandmother is slowly declining and losing her memory, but when she saw the book her immediate reaction was "we never liked him, we never trusted him". I've rarely actually been exposed to the American aspects of Kahanism, instead mostly associating it with radical zionism. And coming away from the book, Magid almost makes Kahane seem sane, not nearly as dangerous as I would have thought.
The ending actually is the most interesting to me. Despite the association with "Kahane Tzadak" and "hilltop youth" (read, terrorists), Magid takes long pains to not only differentiate but drive a wedge through Kahane and Kookian messianism. Here I think he's compelling - Kahane and Kook didn't agree - but the modern movements take from both and combine them. The messianism isn't nearly so spiritual as Kook's vision, especially on a day to day basis. Kachniks are essentially Jabotinskites with kippot and peyot. Its a different world, ideas evolve and recombine.
Anyway, was interesting, but wish it was better written.
The book opens with an anecdote that almost certainly happened in my town, perhaps in my shul, where a Modern Orthodox man (my community) told the author that Kahane was right about everything but only said it not nicely. And to be fair, I think this is a minority though very present feeling among tri-state Modern Orthodox people in Bergen County in particular.
Case in point, the way I came to read this book was being at a neighbors house and being struck by the presence of a large Kahane picture next to a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and seeing on his bookshelf a number of primary and secondary books by/about Kahane. "One of these things is not like the other" and low and behold the owner had been given this book as a gift and "he [Magid] gets Kahane totally wrong" (despite him having only read about 50 pages of the book). So Kahanists definitely are well represented in Modern Orthodoxy, and certainly his ideas are very present.
However, this book is poorly written, especially the first chapter. The first chapter after the introduction is dense and circular and confusing. The rest of the chapters try to be thematic but end up blurring together. And while the core thesis is "Kahane's life is usually read back to front - from Israel to America; he actually should be read front to back, as America to Israel" - the structure of the book just doesn't actually show that. A simpler, more linear orientation would have more clearly shown how the response to Black Power and the 60s and 70s shaped Kahane.
Its a testament to my family and upbringing that I immediately associate the word "Kahane" with "bad guy". My grandmother is slowly declining and losing her memory, but when she saw the book her immediate reaction was "we never liked him, we never trusted him". I've rarely actually been exposed to the American aspects of Kahanism, instead mostly associating it with radical zionism. And coming away from the book, Magid almost makes Kahane seem sane, not nearly as dangerous as I would have thought.
The ending actually is the most interesting to me. Despite the association with "Kahane Tzadak" and "hilltop youth" (read, terrorists), Magid takes long pains to not only differentiate but drive a wedge through Kahane and Kookian messianism. Here I think he's compelling - Kahane and Kook didn't agree - but the modern movements take from both and combine them. The messianism isn't nearly so spiritual as Kook's vision, especially on a day to day basis. Kachniks are essentially Jabotinskites with kippot and peyot. Its a different world, ideas evolve and recombine.
Anyway, was interesting, but wish it was better written.
November 25, 2021
I saw this book mentioned on Twitter and ordered it out of curiosity. I have to admit I hid the book when I took it to doctor appointments and when it was in my car, with Meir Kahane’s name lit up in red print on the cover. This is how he’s been remembered in much of America: racist, xenophobic, violent. And as Magid writes, he certainly was all of that. But it wouldn’t be fair to Jews in America or Israel or other places to just stop there. That’s why I’m so grateful Magid wrote this book. He didn’t stop there and went into Kahane’s ideas in the US and Israeli to show how much of Kahane has carried over into our lives today.
There are two Kahanes, and Magid writes that the American one is almost more important to study in order to understand American Jewry today. Kahane is usually remembered for his theatrics in Israel, but I’ll get to that in a bit. For Meir Kahane in NY, he saw the enemy mostly as liberal Jews who believed in assimilation. This was the biggest threat to American Jewry. It wasn’t even intermarriage, but the watering away of Jewish identity and pride. Kahane found an audience—in a secular way—amongst children of Holocaust survivors. How could these children live under the specter of the Holocaust and what it had done to their parents when American Jews were aiming to assimilate and water down their Jewish identity? This was in the 1960s and 70s before multiculturalism made it cool to be Jewish. But as Magid shows, this initial pride after the war was due to Kahane.
Kahane became infamous in the US because of his violent tactics, but he wasn’t the only one to do this. The Weather Underground, Black Panthers, and other leftist groups also resorted to violence and inspired Kahane to use these tactics for his mission of strengthening the image of Jews in the US. Sure Kahane’s Jewish Defense League was one of the only right wing groups to use these tactics in the 1960s (apart from the KKK and other white supremacy groups, which is not saying nothing!), but Kahane did this to empower Jews in America, not to erase other races and ethnicities (hang on for that a little later). When he saw antisemitism, he called it out. This increased after Israel was attacked by Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and others in 1967 and Israel fought back and won. This was also when American social justice groups took up the cause of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already in refugee camps. These left wing groups started demonizing Jews and Israel and Kahane fought back, even if these left wing activists were Jewish. Ultimately, as much as Kahane wanted to give Jews a voice in the US, he was full of contradictions and some of his ideas were more do as I say, not as I do.
One of his positive lasting legacies was Kahane’s early work to rescue Soviet Jews. He knew the history of Jews in Russia and worried that as soon as the US and the USSR came to terms under detente, the Soviet Union would feel free to massacre its Jewish population, as history has shown there time and again.
When Kahane left the US for Israel in 1971 after being arrested and jailed a number of times, he changed. No longer with a secular outlook to help American Jews, Kahane used his American background to try to overhaul Israel’s political system. This is important to understand because Israel has been so vilified in the press and on social media, and has been portrayed in a way that is very Kahanist, yet that is not how Israel was founded. In fact, Israel banned Kahane and his political party for racism. Kahane felt that a Jewish state had no business being a democracy because that would allow others, namely Arab Palestinians, to become the majority. As it stands now, an Arab Palestinian political party is the third largest party in the Israeli government, but that’s the beauty of a parliamentary democracy. Kahane would not want this, but it’s also something that social media freedom fighters don’t understand. Israel was embarrassed by Kahane and didn’t like his right wing ideas. After all, it was founded as a socialist secular Jewish homeland that welcomes people from other backgrounds. It was never to be in the framework put forth by Kahane. There are neo-Kahanists in Israel now and that’s because of Kahane’s influence. But the government is still a democracy with a large secular population, and the only one in the Middle East.
Magid writes that Kahane’s mistake was to put forth American ideas of race relations in his work in Israel. He was through and through an American and came to Israel thinking he could overhaul the government, just as Americans were trying to do in the 60s. Yet Kahane’s influence in the US is stronger than people want to admit. A pride in Judaism, a fear of antisemitism on the left, and the neoconservative movement are all from Kahane.
As Magid concluded, Kahane was his own worst enemy. His anger and hatred were too domineering and that’s how he is remembered.
There are two Kahanes, and Magid writes that the American one is almost more important to study in order to understand American Jewry today. Kahane is usually remembered for his theatrics in Israel, but I’ll get to that in a bit. For Meir Kahane in NY, he saw the enemy mostly as liberal Jews who believed in assimilation. This was the biggest threat to American Jewry. It wasn’t even intermarriage, but the watering away of Jewish identity and pride. Kahane found an audience—in a secular way—amongst children of Holocaust survivors. How could these children live under the specter of the Holocaust and what it had done to their parents when American Jews were aiming to assimilate and water down their Jewish identity? This was in the 1960s and 70s before multiculturalism made it cool to be Jewish. But as Magid shows, this initial pride after the war was due to Kahane.
Kahane became infamous in the US because of his violent tactics, but he wasn’t the only one to do this. The Weather Underground, Black Panthers, and other leftist groups also resorted to violence and inspired Kahane to use these tactics for his mission of strengthening the image of Jews in the US. Sure Kahane’s Jewish Defense League was one of the only right wing groups to use these tactics in the 1960s (apart from the KKK and other white supremacy groups, which is not saying nothing!), but Kahane did this to empower Jews in America, not to erase other races and ethnicities (hang on for that a little later). When he saw antisemitism, he called it out. This increased after Israel was attacked by Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and others in 1967 and Israel fought back and won. This was also when American social justice groups took up the cause of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already in refugee camps. These left wing groups started demonizing Jews and Israel and Kahane fought back, even if these left wing activists were Jewish. Ultimately, as much as Kahane wanted to give Jews a voice in the US, he was full of contradictions and some of his ideas were more do as I say, not as I do.
One of his positive lasting legacies was Kahane’s early work to rescue Soviet Jews. He knew the history of Jews in Russia and worried that as soon as the US and the USSR came to terms under detente, the Soviet Union would feel free to massacre its Jewish population, as history has shown there time and again.
When Kahane left the US for Israel in 1971 after being arrested and jailed a number of times, he changed. No longer with a secular outlook to help American Jews, Kahane used his American background to try to overhaul Israel’s political system. This is important to understand because Israel has been so vilified in the press and on social media, and has been portrayed in a way that is very Kahanist, yet that is not how Israel was founded. In fact, Israel banned Kahane and his political party for racism. Kahane felt that a Jewish state had no business being a democracy because that would allow others, namely Arab Palestinians, to become the majority. As it stands now, an Arab Palestinian political party is the third largest party in the Israeli government, but that’s the beauty of a parliamentary democracy. Kahane would not want this, but it’s also something that social media freedom fighters don’t understand. Israel was embarrassed by Kahane and didn’t like his right wing ideas. After all, it was founded as a socialist secular Jewish homeland that welcomes people from other backgrounds. It was never to be in the framework put forth by Kahane. There are neo-Kahanists in Israel now and that’s because of Kahane’s influence. But the government is still a democracy with a large secular population, and the only one in the Middle East.
Magid writes that Kahane’s mistake was to put forth American ideas of race relations in his work in Israel. He was through and through an American and came to Israel thinking he could overhaul the government, just as Americans were trying to do in the 60s. Yet Kahane’s influence in the US is stronger than people want to admit. A pride in Judaism, a fear of antisemitism on the left, and the neoconservative movement are all from Kahane.
As Magid concluded, Kahane was his own worst enemy. His anger and hatred were too domineering and that’s how he is remembered.
September 17, 2021
I devoured this book very quickly. In part because I read in as an ebook and wanted to finish it before Yom Kippur (I failed). In part because the subject of this book is so vile, I wanted to get it over with and get the taste out of my mouth. Mostly because it was incredibly insightful and well-written. It is not a pleasant thing to dwell on how Kahane's hateful ideas have been so influential on the 21st century Jewish community in the US and in Israel, but it is important that we do so.
September 16, 2024
I think this could have been about 25% shorter with more critical editing--I often felt that I was reading the same sentence over and over.
On the other hand, an extremely relevant, fascinating account of Kahane's life and writings. I've recommended it to pretty much everyone I know.
On the other hand, an extremely relevant, fascinating account of Kahane's life and writings. I've recommended it to pretty much everyone I know.
August 11, 2025
It would honestly be so much easier for my mental health if the Zios who extol Israel as “the only democratic state in the Middle East,” but who view the denial of Palestinian civil rights and the mass-murder in Gaza as necessary to ensure Jewish safety (read: my parents), would get a real and just admit they want Israel as undemocratic and authoritarian as Kahane did.
April 1, 2022
Meir Kahane is one of the most fascinating American men of the second half of the 20th Century. From his political activism beginning in the 1960's, the formation of the Jewish Defense League during a violent and chaotic time in New York, his writings, political philosophy, chastising of the American-Jewish liberal establishment, his flirtation with Israeli politics, and his assassination. One could argue Kahne was just as influenced by Rap Brown as the Rambam. A uniquely American figure of his time developing a new Jewish pride and consciousness to address the onslaught of mass assimilation and indifference to the plight of Soviet Jews. Kahane was made up of Jewish Orthodoxy, Jewish pride, the movement style of the era (mostly a tool of leftists and Black Nationalists), and right-wing extremist. And at all times a provocateur. Then took his show on the road to Israel where he never gained traction (although I'd argue many of his views are now mainstream).
While Kahane is fascinating, this book isn't. The book is discombobulated and all over the map absent of a narrative. Shaul Magid gives us some Kahane zingers "the American bar mitzvah is all bar and no mitzvah" and some interesting factoids; but this book never really gets where it's supposed to go.
While Kahane is fascinating, this book isn't. The book is discombobulated and all over the map absent of a narrative. Shaul Magid gives us some Kahane zingers "the American bar mitzvah is all bar and no mitzvah" and some interesting factoids; but this book never really gets where it's supposed to go.
May 26, 2023
A solid analysis of one of the most controversial figures in recent modern Jewish history. The sections on Kahane’s racist thought and Judeo-pessimism form the strongest parts of the book, even if it’s barely relevant to Kahane’s much stronger legacy in religious Zionist circles. From an entertainment perspective, I would’ve liked to see the book either expand more into Kahane’s life or legacy, but as an academic analysis of his political writings, this is an excellent tome.
December 24, 2024
Shaul Magid is a gift to scholarship: a writer motivated by the nuances and facets of truth, not the whims and fancies of trend. Unafraid to dig into subject matter so painfully taboo that as other readers pointed out, it straight up feels weird to read this book in public in certain situations, Magid has done the world a tremendous service with this impeccably researched and deeply introspective work.
The central thesis of the book is that Kahane was a thoroughly American thinker, forged in the fires of 60s racial strife, someone whose thinking was so thoroughly Western that he was unable to shed this identity no matter how hard he may have tried. Accompanying this thesis is a warning: we refuse to study Kahane and understand him at our own peril. By ignoring him, we leave an ideological vacuum that has since been filled with the very ideas that Kahane espoused. By not naming his influence, by calling him insane and labeling his work as drivel, we deny the obvious - that Israeli society is more thoroughly Kahanist than it ever was.
As with Magid’s other work, be prepared for wide-ranging, esoteric, and incredible sources from the biblical to the modern that will enlighten.
We should be afraid of Kahane’s influence, but that alone won’t protect us. Knowledge is the key, as Magid states, and this is a crucial entry.
The central thesis of the book is that Kahane was a thoroughly American thinker, forged in the fires of 60s racial strife, someone whose thinking was so thoroughly Western that he was unable to shed this identity no matter how hard he may have tried. Accompanying this thesis is a warning: we refuse to study Kahane and understand him at our own peril. By ignoring him, we leave an ideological vacuum that has since been filled with the very ideas that Kahane espoused. By not naming his influence, by calling him insane and labeling his work as drivel, we deny the obvious - that Israeli society is more thoroughly Kahanist than it ever was.
As with Magid’s other work, be prepared for wide-ranging, esoteric, and incredible sources from the biblical to the modern that will enlighten.
We should be afraid of Kahane’s influence, but that alone won’t protect us. Knowledge is the key, as Magid states, and this is a crucial entry.
September 27, 2023
Magid writes a biography focused on Kahane as a distinctly American political figure. This is not an exhaustive biography, and the authors says as much in his introduction. Kahane used the language and tactics of the 60s radical, especially the terminology of the Black Panthers, even when he defined the radical politics and mainstream liberalism as enemies of Jewish "pride" and "survival."
Magid makes the argument that Kahane and the JDL have had a lasting impact on contemporary American Jewish life, even as Kahane cast himself against the mainstream of Jewish life in the 60s and 70s. Kahane very much provided the vocabulary (and it is, to use Magid's term, a "racist grammar") for a Judaism and Jewishness defined against antisemitism, universalism, and intersectionality.
All in all, an engaging book about a troubling persona for those interested in Jewish History and Antisemitism. This makes me want to revisit two other Jewish History books, "Rabbi Outcast" about Elmer Berger, another anti-liberal (though anti-zionist) firebrand, and "The Heebie Jeebies at CBGBs" about the Jewishness of the Punk Counterculture in 1970s NYC, the same fertile ground for Kahane's JDL.
Magid makes the argument that Kahane and the JDL have had a lasting impact on contemporary American Jewish life, even as Kahane cast himself against the mainstream of Jewish life in the 60s and 70s. Kahane very much provided the vocabulary (and it is, to use Magid's term, a "racist grammar") for a Judaism and Jewishness defined against antisemitism, universalism, and intersectionality.
All in all, an engaging book about a troubling persona for those interested in Jewish History and Antisemitism. This makes me want to revisit two other Jewish History books, "Rabbi Outcast" about Elmer Berger, another anti-liberal (though anti-zionist) firebrand, and "The Heebie Jeebies at CBGBs" about the Jewishness of the Punk Counterculture in 1970s NYC, the same fertile ground for Kahane's JDL.
March 11, 2024
A book about a racist theocratic fascist who the author felt he should write a book about because said fascist happened to be Jewish. The hasbara is strong in this one.
Some Kahane quotes:
“Non-Jews will be obliged to assume duties, taxes and slavery. If he does not agree to slavery and taxes, he will be forcibly deported.”
“A non-Jew will not live within the jurisdiction of the city of Jerusalem.”
“A non-Jew who has a marital relationship with a Jew is liable to 50 years in prison. A Jewish prostitute or a Jewish male who has an affair with a non-Jewish male is sentenced to five years in prison.”
https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-m...
Some Kahane quotes:
“Non-Jews will be obliged to assume duties, taxes and slavery. If he does not agree to slavery and taxes, he will be forcibly deported.”
“A non-Jew will not live within the jurisdiction of the city of Jerusalem.”
“A non-Jew who has a marital relationship with a Jew is liable to 50 years in prison. A Jewish prostitute or a Jewish male who has an affair with a non-Jewish male is sentenced to five years in prison.”
https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-m...
March 23, 2022
I like this book and excellent work by the author. Everybody needs to read this book and understand why few Israelis and American Jews have this view of Meir Kahane.
April 15, 2023
the authors bias was interesting (and loud) but it was a great way to learn about kahane and illuminating to understand his impact on jewry in america and orthodoxy today
October 9, 2025
Worth reading, super interesting subject and really explains why things are the way they are. Kind of repetitive and disjointed though.
December 29, 2023
It’s actually crazy how relevant this book was to me right now. I picked it up after having read some Magid this past semester and going to a talk of his plus seeing some buzz words on the cover, but I had no idea how many concepts and texts would come up that I had been thinking about for months. I came into this knowing next to nothing about Kahane and his thought or the history of the JDL and his political career. As Magid states at the outset, this isn’t a traditional biography discussing events in order. Consequently, it took a little bit to get the timeline down, but I think in the end it was still pretty accessible not having known much going into it. I think that personally the first 4 chapters were a lot more interesting than the last 2 for a number of reasons, which made those last 2 a bit more skim-y. That being said, I thought that this was overall a fascinating perspective (Kahane’s and also Magid’s framing).
Below is a non-exhaustive bingo card of topics, authors, and texts that came up in this book that I was thinking about this semester, whether in my Judaic Studies course (The Political Theology of the Jewish Question) or just in general:
Universalism vs particularism, divine election
Marx, “On the Jewish Question”
Wilderson, “Red, White, and Black,”afropessimism generally
Ta-Nehisi Coates (reparations)
Critique of liberalism
Connection and contrast between antisemitism and anti-black racism
Use of religiosity in protests
Israel cannot be both a Jewish state and democratic
Fanon generally, Wretched of the Earth specifically
Comfort stemming from distance from the Holocaust
Satmar religious anti-Zionism, Yoel Teitelbaum eschatology
Messianism, Mashiach Ben Yosef, Apocalypticism
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
Paul the Apostle
Political theology
Sefer Zerubbabel, Armelius
Buber, Arendt, Boyarin, Scholem, Heschel
An aside:
This book is the first book that I read as a pdf on my phone! I did not enjoy the experience very much at all. I would’ve read a print copy or even read chunks on my computer, but I only had the pdf on my phone and wanted to read it too much to wait for it to come into the library. The experience confirmed every hesitation I ever had about reading books on my phone. However, I may experiment with having books that I am not super actively reading be on my phone; the one upside was always being able to read it and have it with me in a passing moment (especially not having access to wifi or cell service).
Below is a non-exhaustive bingo card of topics, authors, and texts that came up in this book that I was thinking about this semester, whether in my Judaic Studies course (The Political Theology of the Jewish Question) or just in general:
Universalism vs particularism, divine election
Marx, “On the Jewish Question”
Wilderson, “Red, White, and Black,”afropessimism generally
Ta-Nehisi Coates (reparations)
Critique of liberalism
Connection and contrast between antisemitism and anti-black racism
Use of religiosity in protests
Israel cannot be both a Jewish state and democratic
Fanon generally, Wretched of the Earth specifically
Comfort stemming from distance from the Holocaust
Satmar religious anti-Zionism, Yoel Teitelbaum eschatology
Messianism, Mashiach Ben Yosef, Apocalypticism
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
Paul the Apostle
Political theology
Sefer Zerubbabel, Armelius
Buber, Arendt, Boyarin, Scholem, Heschel
An aside:
This book is the first book that I read as a pdf on my phone! I did not enjoy the experience very much at all. I would’ve read a print copy or even read chunks on my computer, but I only had the pdf on my phone and wanted to read it too much to wait for it to come into the library. The experience confirmed every hesitation I ever had about reading books on my phone. However, I may experiment with having books that I am not super actively reading be on my phone; the one upside was always being able to read it and have it with me in a passing moment (especially not having access to wifi or cell service).
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews