Likud lawmaker to memorialize slain far-right rabbi Kahane
MK Yehuda Glick says founder of banned Kach group should be honored as former legislator who campaigned for Soviet Jews
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
A Likud lawmaker is scheduled to speak during a memorial service next week for Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Brooklyn-born founder of the Jewish Defense League in the US and the racist Kach movement in Israel, both of which were later alleged to have engaged in terror activities.
Kahane, an Orthodox Jew and outspoken advocate of extreme Jewish nationalism, was assassinated by an Egyptian-born American on November 5, 1990, in New York after making a speech.
MK Yehuda Glick is set to be a guest of honor and deliver an address via video link during a November 20 event organized by the JDL chapters of Toronto and New York, the Hebrew-language NRG news site reported Saturday night.
Glick is a staunch activist for Jewish rights to prayer and access on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the site of the two ancient Jewish temples. His views have made him a controversial figure, as Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, which also houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is banned by a status quo agreement and adamantly opposed by Palestinians. Glick was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in October 2014, before he became a Knesset member, when a Palestinian shot him over his Temple Mount activities.
Kahane set up the JDL in 1968 with the stated aim of protecting Jews against anti-Semitism, opening chapters across North America. By 2001 the JDL was considered by the FBI a radical organization suspected of engaging in terror activities. Kahane established the Kach political party in Israeli in 1971 and in 1985 won a single seat in the Knesset. In 1988 the party was disqualified from running in elections on the grounds that its platform was racist. In 1994 the Kach movement was banned in Israel under anti-terrorism laws.
Glick defended his participation in the event to, telling NRG that to memorialize a person doesn’t mean one’s views necessarily dovetail with those of the deceased. He also noted that Kahane was a murdered former member of Knesset and that he had been very active in campaigning on behalf of the Jewish community stranded behind the Iron Curtain.
In an email to supporters, the JDL organizers of the event reportedly wrote that Glick had also taken steps to invite President-elect Donald Trump to visit the Temple Mount.
Last Wednesday, after Trump was confirmed as the winner of the US presidential elections, Glick tweeted an invitation to Trump, asking the victorious Republican to ascend to the Temple Mount and from there bring peace to the entire world.
