Meir Kahane
Rabbi, writer and far right American-Israeli politician (1932–1990)
Meir David HaKohen Kahane ( kə-HAH-nə; Hebrew: מאיר דוד הכהן כהנא; born Martin David Kahane; August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-born Israeli Orthodox rabbi, writer, and politician. He was the founder of the Israeli political party Kach, which promoted an ultra-nationalist ideology that continues to influence some militant and far-right political groups active today in Israel. Kahane was convicted in the United States and Israel for offenses related to terrorism.
Born in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York City, to an Orthodox Jewish family, Kahane received his education there, starting with Jewish scripture studies, and eventually gaining an M.A. in International Relations from New York University. In 1968, he founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in New York City, whose self-described purpose was to fight antisemitism. Several JDL members, including Kahane, were subsequently convicted of acts related to domestic terrorism, including leading the attack on the Soviet United Nations mission in 1975. Later that same year, Kahane was convicted of conspiring to kidnap a Soviet diplomat, bomb the Iraqi embassy in Washington, and ship arms abroad from Israel. He consequently served a one-year imprisonment, albeit in a hotel.
In 1971, Kahane moved to Israel and became a citizen, where he initiated protests calling for the expulsion of both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians of the Israeli-occupied territories, which led to his arrest dozens of times. In the same year, he founded Kach, a political party that initially failed to gain any seats in the Knesset.
“Meir Kahane” enters the record as rabbi, writer and far right American-Israeli politician (1932–1990). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Meir, Kahane and Rabbi can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q247538. VIAF identifies the subject as 120783852. The Library of Congress control number is n50042741. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1990, 1968 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Meir Kahane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.