The Kahane Question

27 Shevat 5785 (25 Feb 2025)

The shriek has gone out, the libzio axis of whining has come out once more. In a fashion that can only be described as both stunning and brave, the “Free Gaza from Hamas” cohort has decided to pile onto Lizzy Savetsky, a Texan Jewish mother of 4, for the deep evil of posting a Meir Kahane clip. How dare she. I wonder if the same people would be so bold and confident as to level the same energetic condemnation at gedolim who in Kahane’s time seemed to have had some reverence for him. Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe eulogized him saying: “one of the greatest Jewish leaders in history has fallen”. It’s important to point out for people in my generation, Gen Z, that many Jewish leaders of the time were fully capable of admiring Kahane for some things while distancing themselves from other aspects. Many appreciated his organization on behalf of freeing Soviet Jewry while opposing his direct confrontation of Soviet officials in the US. This actually happens to be a totally salient way to interact with people and ideas and the totalizing approval or condemnation is a pretty low-resolution and non-Jewish way of seeing the world.

A small observation before we begin: if your goal is to quell, and/or otherwise limit dialogue surrounding Kahane, perhaps you shouldn’t, in a suddenly momentous campaign, flood Instagram with condemnations of a massive influencer account talking about him. I couldn't stop myself laughing while reading the comment sections. On a variety of posts were accounts suddenly discovering Kahane and liking the message in the clip. “I’m tired of yahrtzeits and kaddish”. There are some undeniably resonant lines. Because Lizzy also refused to delete the reel, (respectable imo) all the whiny condemnations managed to do is drive more traffic and attention to it. Shkoyach guys. Ya did it. Everyone is now talking about Meir Kahane instead of far more relevant topics.

Despite the undeserved attention and outsized fear mongering of jews of say ‘Kahana Tzadak’ , it should be said that Kahanism, in practice, was a total failure. After moving to Israel in 1971, the Israeli political apparatus set up a firewall against Kahane, and unsurprisingly the Israeli Supreme Court banned him from running in the Knesset in the late 80s. Putting aside the merits, Kahane was essentially purged from political life in Israel, and as a result within his lifetime accomplished very little. JDL- Stans can whine as much as they like about the unfair political treatment Kach received but it’s moot. If you cant sell your ideology politically you’ve failed, period. I’ve come to realize that Kahanism as an ideology offers little of value because Kahanism can’t answer the how. Kahanism offered a utopian vision, but no strategy or plan of action to actually achieve it.

These days, Kahanism is adrift, largely ensnared by regurgitated slogans. Even the heir apparent of Kahane, Ben Gvir, is a completely useless entity. His political currency has only diminished since Saar’s homecoming to the Likud party and his clownish choice to leave the government over the hostage deal has rendered him utterly ineffectual and irrelevant. His limited loosening of gun control in Israel was his best achievement (one that hopefully continues to loosen). Frankly the sheer level of fear mongering over brown Peter Griffin deserves a substack analysis of its own, but let’s not get distracted. Kahanism’s main effectiveness now is to exist as ragebait, and inflate egos on social media. Kahane has become a low effort symbol for those who want to countersignal against Arabs. It isn’t very original nor new, it’s פשיטה. Overall, Kahane asked important questions, offered many true insights but also offered a lot bad ones that have been undone over time.

The reality is that most of the people liking the reel are nowhere near to being devoted kahanists.

Hell, even most self-described kahanists aren't even really that committed to the man's teachings. Yeah, they're all about the JDL imagery and being tough Jews, but little importance is placed on leading a life centered around halacha. The disconnect between supporters of “Kahanism” and Kahanism itself, is most apparent when considering that Kahane advocated for a fully halachic state, and the people espousing “Kahane was right” aren’t for the most part remotely Orthodox. If polled, I doubt even 30% of self-described kahanists would be in favor of a theocratic government that would require deporting their gentile girlfriends. It’s clear that the vast majority of his supporters truly know close to nothing about him. I would argue that they couldn’t tell you which yeshiva Kahane learned at, or have read any of his books (I’ve tried reading his religious works which I found plainfully bland). Little is said of Kahane’s affair with a goya named Gloria Jean D’Argenio who mysteriously jumped off a bridge soon after discovering that Kahane was an FBI undercover agent. All this seems to get conveniently swept under the rug. A false representation of Kahane that is entirely detached from who he actually was gets propagated by the bulk of his stans. Will the real Meir Kahane please stand up? It appears that most people see a clip of him saying “Arabs bad”, and conclude that he is some sort of epic psychic wizard prophet. Have we lost all sense of standards? Saying “Kahane was right”, when a person knows nothing, and just wants to be edgy, is a futile exercise. Trolling has its uses, we're no strangers to it here at LEZM, but this is faux edginess in our opinion. Want to be a real Kahanist? Get married and start a Jewish family that centers Judaism at home.

Let’s close this point by saying that most people, who were by no means Kahanists, flocked to Savestkys uploaded clip because of the message in it, and not the man. And unlike the libzio contingent on Instagram, we dont believe a self-inflicted whipping post needs to get set up as a response.

So many big influencer pages immediately launched into girlboss educator mode as if anyone really cares about intra-jewish instagram drama other than fellow neurotic and autistic Jews. Still though, the impulse is funny. Last time I remember seeing this much ire was when a different Jewish mom-fluencer posted about the radical assimilation rates plaguing the American Jewish community. To be fair it was the way she said it according to them, because otherwise they totally agree it's a problem, right Jinstagram? Right?!? Obviously this too is a cope. The fact that people get more upset about provocative language rather than the assimilation crisis itself is clearly a cope because they can’t possibly defend rampant assimilation as a desirable feature of communal Jewish life. This is repeated once more in the current week’s fascination with Kahane.

The prevailing sentiment seems to be to say that “Kahanism is the death of Zionism”. Oslo-era liberal reincarnations like Sam Hyde (not the funny one) seem to own this as a rallying cry now. Others of his ideological ilk have jumped onto the phrase as well. Truthfully, it falls on deaf ears. The huffing and puffing against “militant language” of Kahane and the doomer predictions are shallow when you look into what this cohort prescribes as a solution to the “Arab question”. Hyde, joined by Blake Flayton, openly suggests that the settlements in Judea Samaria should be evacuated of its Jewish inhabitants and that Israel should force them into submission by economically isolating them from mainland commercial resources. How is this not considered an extreme and offensive suggestion? We seemingly don't even have the guts to do this to Gaza all the way in the middle of a war, but we do for Jews in Judea Samaria? I find it absolutely repulsive. For all the whining about the extremes of Kahane, which we can easily condemn, surely suggesting that the Israeli government should choke out hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in the heartland of Israel is extreme in equal measure. Naturally, no one cares, because this isn’t a cudgel to beat right wingers over the head with. Tried and failed liberal solutions never receive the death blow they deserve, the Oslo Syndrome remains. Have we not learned our lesson already? We played this game out already in Gaza. What is it going to take? Another October 7th?

The hubris from people who openly endorse these ideas while castigating “Kahanism as the death of Zionism” is really too much. Give me a fucking break. They must deride Kahane and declare their own self-righteousness in order to thwart any self-reflection in themselves. The boogeyman of “Jewish terrorism” must be condemned so that we may present ourselves as civilized people as if that isn’t the obvious truth. Lately, the biggest manipulation rolling out of these hyper-liberal corners (and from the Sudra-Man PBUH) is that “we must not become them!”. Ignoring the stupid bumper sticker intellectualism, with some deeper thought this is actually a pretty good point to investigate. Sam Harris digs into this in saying that it’s actually quite hard to challenge jihadists at their own value systems. People who chant “we love death” and view their own children as cannon fodder won’t be deterred by the standard rules of warfare developed in the west. How does a modern military fight a jihadist death cult? Do we match their level of depravity so as to repel them? I don’t have the answers to be honest. At the very least, what we do know, is that land is the currency of victory in our neighborhood of the world. Diplomacy gets settled over conquest and dunams. Let us not forget that Sadat came to the table because Egypt lost Sinai and Cairo was about to be captured. Unfortunately, left wing Zionists don’t even seem to have an appetite for re-taking any section of Gaza into Israeli sovereignty or discussing populations transfers lest they be accused of ethnic cleansing. It’s also just a gross lie to position Israeli society as being so near to Hamas that it would only take Meir Kahane to make us indistinguishable from them.

So why even say these things? Why post so much cope? It’s becoming clear that normie/liberal Zionist institutions and activists are realizing they’re losing their grip on Jewish discourse online and in person. As a participant in the vice known as “jinstagram” (“Jewish instagram” for the mentally-healthy people reading this), it's been observably true to see how much the “Jewish right” has grown, and dominated online discourse since October 7th. Israelis for the most part have been reliably right-leaning people for a long time now, but our American counterparts resoundingly not so much. A shift is occurring though, and it's palpable. Trump winning the election with a historically high proportion of the Jewish vote seems to be the biggest signal of this. Just to be explicitly clear, this election was decided over culture war issues and Jews have shifted right in a large proportion. Will that be a repeat phenomenon? It’s unclear. Point is, for the time being, the red-pill has been swallowed. October 7th, in tragic fashion, seems to have formed in our minds as a totally sobering episode of the dangers of relinquishing Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. It has reminded us that there is such a thing as objective good and evil and that the latter can sit on our very doorstep.

What those opposing Kahanism generally fail to accept is that they themselves give fuel to Kahanists because they don’t see past their own failures, which in turn makes people seek an alternative. The lack of strong leadership leads people to search for strongmen, and so Kahane is thrust into this role on social media despite him being dead for over 30 years and his movement fizzling out. Whether it be the failures of the Oslo Accords or the events following Oct 7th, the song hasn’t changed, and it won’t because their position is built upon a duplicitous foundation. No one wants to hear anyone muse over some entirely impractical two-state solution much less starving out Jews from their homes in the land of Israel. Constantly hammering the same failed solution as the end all be all can only work for so long. Jews are exhausted of it.

We must face a basic truth in our pursuits going forward: there will never and can never truly be peace with the Palestinian national project. It has chosen to uplift the worst traits of humanity as championed values and solely exists as a thorn into our own national existence.

So spare us the whining, stop dogging out Jewish moms because you’re bored. The admin group of Low Effort Zionist Memes aren’t theocrats, some of us are frum, and some aren’t. Kahanism’s greatest worth is the lessons that can be derived from its failure, most importantly that without a real plan, ideas will never grow past imagination. Whether it be in Israel or abroad, similar to Kahanism, LEZM fully advocates and supports Jews projecting strength through force + action, and responsibly taking up arms to protect against our enemies. LEZM supports genuine אהבת ישראל. Growing knowledge and pride in our faith, culture, history, traditions are massively important objectives for Jews to build Jewish families. 

- Autistic Ashkie

- Jewish Mom Defender (formerly known as the Lawless Levite)