Waking up from the Coma - Reclaiming the term 'Nekama' - Rav Shlomo Katz

 When did the term Nekama get hijacked? What does it even mean? Is it even about us or only about Hashem? Moshe Rabbenu and King David show us the way back to reclaiming a crucial element of humanity and of our yiddishkeit.

From the teachings of Rav Meir Kahane z'l hy'd,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SviwLJR5lYc&t=1861s

On His 28th Yahrzeit: A 1990 Interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane, ztk’l Hours Before His Murder

The interview that took place on November 5, 1990

Q: Rabbi Kahane, you have had an extraordinary life, during which you have become beloved and hated to a degree that few have seen. You are among the most controversial and well known Jews in the world and the pressures on you must be enormous. How do you continue and what do you see as your future?

A New York Daily News story on the shocking assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, ztk’l, hy’d, that appeared in the November 6, 1990 issue.

A: I have done and will, please G-d, continue to do the things I do because the things that I say are true, are parts of the authentic Jewish Idea. The fact that so many cannot see and understand, or attack and defame and worse, is not relevant to truth or to my obligation to that truth. The rabbis tell us that the ALL Mighty appointed Moses and Aaron as leaders of the Jews on condition that they accept being pelted with stones. Things have not changed.

Q: Yet you were barred from the Knesset and also face numerous legal problems. What about them?

 

A: concerning the Knesset barring – an act of totalitarianism which saw an obscene silence on the part of Jewish liberals and every Jewish establishment group – we are, of course, working on running for the next Knesset within the constraints of the present law. We have studied it carefully and know what changes must be made to have me run. They were changes we did not have the time to make in 1988. This time it will be different and we will use the loophole we have found to run.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, ztk’l standing in front of the Knesset building in Jerusalem

I must add that if and when, please G-d, we do, we will amass a huge number of votes and seats since the events of the past two years have made countless Jews realize how right I was over the past 20 years. Not only will we be the third-largest party but we will challenge Labor as the second party and no nationalist government will be formed without us. And that will be the beginning of an historic change in Israel and the creation of a truly Jewish state made in the image of the G-d of Israel.

Q: and your legal problems?

A: As of this moment, I await the decision of my citizenship trial in Washington. That entire thing is a sordid example of a joint effort by the United States and Israeli governments to insure that I will not be able to enter the United States since, if I do lose my citizenship, the U.S. will never issue me a visa. Both the U.S. and Israeli governments have a vested interest in my not being able to raise money and support here, since if I achieve even substantial power in Israel, the Baker Plan and every other American attempt to pressure Israel into dangerous concessions will be rejected and U.S. Mideast policy thwarted.

Rabbi Kahane as a young student at the Brooklyn Talmudical Academy (BTA)

I have a superb attorney, Nat Lewin, one of this country’s finest constitutional lawyers, and he believes that we have a strong case in opposing a clearly outrageous political scheme. The great problem here is the judge, Aubrey Robinson, who sentenced Jonathan Pollard to life imprisonment. During my hearing he was openly hostile and sarcastic and his anti-Semitism came through clearly. Even if I lose, I will of course appeal (I have two more appeals), but so will the State Department if I win. The big question is whether Robinson will allow me to enter the U.S. pending that appeal. If not, I will have to depend on good Jews replying to the Israel-U.S. conspiracy by voluntarily sending me the large amounts of funds needed.

Q: And what about your Israeli problems?

A: Two serious criminal cases face me there, both outweighed only by the totalitarian nature of the proceedings. In the first, involving my speech at a protest rally in Jerusalem following the murder of 16 Jews on an interurban bus near Jerusalem, at which I called the Arabs a “cancer in our midst,” I am being tried under a British Mandate law that defines “sedition” in a way that any totalitarian state would envy and under which any Jew in Israel could be jailed daily for stating political views. Worse, this law bars me from proving the truth of my statement since under the law truth is not relevant.

Rabbi Kahane at a KACH party rally in Israel in the early 1970s.

For a while there was hope that the case would be thrown out since the state simply forgot to sign the indictment, and the statute of limitations had passed. But the judge in the case (a leftist who had also ruled against the Jews who purchased an Old City building from the Greek Orthodox Church some time ago) allowed the state to rule that an unsigned indictment was valid, since “one could not escape the truth through a technicality.” This, in a case in which the truth is not relevant!

The second case involved the murder of two elderly Jews in May 1989, on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, in which I led a large crowd of Jews in a protest march to the Old City, and the police charge me with having refused to disperse (the crowd was tear-gassed and 11 Kach people, including myself, arrested). In the United States a conviction on such a charge would be a minor affair but in Israel the maximum is five years imprisonment (the same as with my first case).

At his wedding to Libby Kahane, nee Blum in the 1950s in Brooklyn

Q: I must return to a previous point since so many people raise it. The lies and defamation and attacks on you must surely wear you down. How do you cope with it?

A: I answered that previously, at least in part. But let me add a bit to that. To begin with, one rule is basic: Never responds to vicious and filthy lies that are clear attempts to defame and destroy and that are funded and planned by enemies of the Jewish people. When one responds to these things, that is exactly what the enemy wants, since it only helps to publicize the defamation. When one gets into the mud with the swine, one must emerge filthy. King David said (Psalms 69:5): “They who hate me without reason are more than the hairs of my head,” but he also taught us how to react to the haters in Psalms 39:2: “I will keep a curb on my mouth, while the wicked one is before me.”

Serving as a reservist in the Israeli army. Circa 1983

In a word, one does not bark back at barking dogs if one is a person and not a dog.

Please continue your prayers for Rivka bat Talya the 20-year old daughter of Binyamin and Talya Kahane, may G-d avenge their blood.

Supporters mark 28th anniversary of Rabbi Meir Kahane's murder Followers of Jewish Defense League founder, Knesset Member Rabbi Meir Kahane gather in J'lem marking 30 years since banning of Kach party.

Hundreds gathered at the Heichal David event hall in Jerusalem Thursday evening to mark the 28th anniversary of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League and Knesset Member for the now-defunct Kach party.

Students and supporters of the late rabbi also used the event to mark the 30th anniversary of the banning of Rabi Kahane’s Kach movement, which was barred from participating in the elections for the 12th Knesset in November 1988.

“Twenty-eight years have passed since the murder of this great Jewish leader,” said attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, a member of the Otzmah Yehudit party, which was formed by former Kach members Baruch Marzel and former National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari.

“Rabbi Kahane was murdered twice,” Ben-Gvir continued. “The second time was the physical murder by the lowly terrorist who took his life. The first time was much worse. It wasn’t by a terrorist, but by the entire government. Not with the bullet of a pistol, but through laws and regulations – like a mafia.”

“They didn’t take his body, but they tried to take his soul – to silence him and shut his mouth. Looking in retrospect twenty-eight years year, it looks like it is impossible to silence the true ‘Jewish Idea’,” Ben-Gvir continued, alluding to the title of Rabbi Kahane’s book “The Jewish Idea”.

“Thirty years after the banning of the Kach movement [from running for the Knesset], we demand justice, and to right this historic wrong. Thirty years later, it is now impossible to silence us.”

Born in Brooklyn in 1932, Rabbi Meir David Kahane was ordained at the Mir Yeshiva in New York, becoming rabbi for a congregation in Queens in 1958.

After working as a consultant for the FBI in the 1960s, Rabbi Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, with the goal of providing security for American Jewish communities, and agitating on behalf of Jewish causes abroad – most notably the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union who wished to emigrate.

Rabbi Kahane quickly became a controversial figure within the Jewish community for the JDL’s harassment of Soviet diplomats.

In 1971, Rabbi Kahane and his family immigrated to Israel where he established the Kach movement, running for Knesset in 1973.

Running on a platform supporting the expulsion of Israel’s Arab population and the annexation of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to the State of Israel, Rabbi Kahane became a highly polarizing figure in Israel.

Kahane served in the Knesset as the Kach party’s sole MK from 1984 to 1988, before the faction was banned from running for the 12th Knesset, after polls predicted the party would win as many as 12 seats.

In 1990, Rabbi Kahane was gunned down by Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda.

Rabbi Kahane’s son, Rabbi Binyamin Zeev Kahane, was murdered along with his wife in a terror attack in Samaria on New Year’s Eve 2000.

AN INTERVIEW A FEW HOURS BEFORE ASSASSINATION

“Beyond Words” is a published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings from 1960 – 1990 that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.

“Beyond Words” also includes a number of extra features:

Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.

“Beyond Words” now can be bought at Amazon.com.  On the search line, type…  Beyond Words Kahane.

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990

Volume 7

Interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane as He Faces Possible Barring from U.S.

Written November 9, 1990

This interview took place a few hours before Rabbi Kahane’s assassination

Q: Rabbi Kahane, you have had an extraordinary life, during which you have become beloved and hated to a degree that few have seen.  You are among the most controversial and well known Jews in the world and the pressures on you must be enormous.  How do you continue and what do you see as your future?

A: I have done and will, please G-d, continue to do the things I do because the things that I say are true, are parts of the authentic Jewish Idea.  The fact that so many cannot see and understand, or attack and defame and worse, is not relevant to truth or to my obligation to that truth.  The rabbis tell us that the ALL Mighty appointed Moses and Aaron as leaders of the Jews on condition that they accept being pelted with stones.  Things have not changed.

Q: Yet you were barred from the Knesset and also face numerous legal problems.  What about them?

A: concerning the Knesset barring – an act of totalitarianism which saw an obscene silence on the part of Jewish liberals and every Jewish establishment group – we are, of course, working on running for the next Knesset within the constraints of the present law. We have studied it carefully and know what changes must be made to have me run. They were changes we did not have the time to make in 1988.  This time it will be different and we will use the loophole we have found to run.  I must add that if and when, please G-d, we do, we will amass a huge number of votes and seats since the events of the past two years have made countless Jews realize how right I was over the past 20 years.  Not only will we be the third-largest party but we will challenge Labor as the second party and no nationalist government will be formed without us.  And that will be the beginning of an historic change in Israel and the creation of a truly Jewish state made in the image of the G-d of Israel.

Q: and your legal problems?

A: As of this moment, I await the decision of my citizenship trial in Washington.  That entire thing is a sordid example of a joint effort by the United States and Israeli governments to insure that I will not be able to enter the United States since, if I do lose my citizenship, the U.S. will never issue me a visa.  Both the U.S. and Israeli governments have a vested interest in my not being able to raise money and support here, since if I achieve even substantial power in Israel, the Baker Plan and every other American attempt to pressure Israel into dangerous concessions will be rejected and U.S. Mideast policy thwarted.

I have a superb attorney, Nat Lewin, one of this country’s finest constitutional lawyers, and he believes that we have a strong case in opposing a clearly outrageous political scheme.  The great problem here is the judge, Aubrey Robinson, who sentenced Jonathan Pollard to life imprisonment.  During my hearing he was openly hostile and sarcastic and his anti-Semitism came through clearly.    Even if I lose, I will of course appeal (I have two more appeals), but so will the State Department if I win.  The big question is whether Robinson will allow me to enter the U.S. pending that appeal.  If not, I will have to depend on good Jews replying to the Israel-U.S. conspiracy by voluntarily sending me the large amounts of funds needed.

Q: And what about your Israeli problems?

A: Two serious criminal cases face me there, both outweighed only by the totalitarian nature of the proceedings.  In the first, involving my speech at a protest rally in Jerusalem following the murder of 16 Jews on an interurban bus near Jerusalem, at which I called the Arabs a “cancer in our midst,” I am being tried under a British Mandate law that defines “sedition” in a way that any totalitarian state would envy and under which any Jew in Israel could be jailed daily for stating political views.  Worse, this law bars me from proving the truth of my statement since under the law truth is not relevant.

For a while there was hope that the case would be thrown out since the state simply forgot to sign the indictment, and the statute of limitations had passed. But the judge in the case (a leftist who had also ruled against the Jews who purchased an Old City building from the Greek Orthodox Church some time ago) allowed the state to rule that an unsigned indictment was valid, since “one could not escape the truth through a technicality.”  This, in a case in which the truth is not relevant!

The second case involved the murder of two elderly Jews in May 1989, on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, in which I led a large crowd of Jews in a protest march to the Old City, and the police charge me with having refused to disperse (the crowd was tear-gassed and 11 Kach people, including myself, arrested).  In the United States a conviction on such a charge would be a minor affair but in Israel the maximum is five years imprisonment (the same as with my first case).

Q: I must return to a previous point since so many people raise it.  The lies and defamation and attacks on you must surely wear you down.  How do you cope with it?

A: I answered that previously, at least in part.  But let me add a bit to that. To begin with, one rule is basic: Never responds to vicious and filthy lies that are clear attempts to defame and destroy and that are funded and planned by enemies of the Jewish people.  When one responds to these things, that is exactly what the enemy wants, since it only helps to publicize the defamation.  When one gets into the mud with the swine, one must emerge filthy.  King David said (Psalms 69:5): “They who hate me without reason are more than the hairs of my head,” but he also taught us how to react to the haters in Psalms 39:2: “I will keep a curb on my mouth, while the wicked one is before me.”

In a word, one does not bark back at barking dogs if one is a person and not a dog.

Remembering RABBI MEIR KAHANE ~ L'Chayim tv ~ Rabbi Mark Golub

RABBI MEIR KAHANE speaks at Temple Shaar HaShamayim

RABBI MEIR KAHANE’S POWERFUL REMARKS AT THE POTENTIAL HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IN JERUSALEM (JTF VIDEO)

Rabbi Meir Kahane: What is so special about being a Jew? Part 3 of 3 (JTF video)

RABBI MEIR KAHANE: WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT BEING A JEW? PART 2 OF 3 (JTF VIDEO)

Rabbi Meir Kahane: What is so special about being a Jew? Part 1 of 3 (JTF video)

ARE- Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D on "The CBS News Night Watch"

Rabbi Meir Kahane interviewed on CNN in 1983

Rabbi Meir Kahane's last speech on the night of his assassination by Al Qaeda Muslim terrorists

Rabbi Meir Kahane: There is no mitzvah for Jews to be stepped upon!

An Open Letter To The World by Rabbi Meir Kahane

Kahane on the Parsha Rabbi Binyamin Kahane- Parshat Terumah THE MOSQUES MUST GO!!!!

On the verse, "And you shall make a sanctuary for Me" (Exodus 25:8), the Ohr HaChaim writes: "It is a mitzvah for all times." At the very opening of His Hilchot Beit HaBechirah, the Rambam writes: "It is a positive commandment to construct a house for G-d...as it is written, 'And you shall make a sanctuary for Me.'"

We have discussed this subject on numerous occasions, and we will continue stressing that the mitzvah to build the Temple is an UNCONDITIONAL commandment, NOT dependent on the Messiah or the nation's spiritual level. But in this article, our goal is not to deal with the different argument advanced against building the Temple in contemporary times. For in recent years, these arguments have been refuted in the hearts of many Jews, as heightened awareness of the subject has caused them to study it in halachic depth.

But before we can pick up brick and mortar to start fulfilling the awesome mitzvah of building the Holy Temple, there is one small problem: the mosques. The desire to be accepted by large segments of the public has prevented all talk about REMOVING these terrible specimens of Chilul Hashem on the Temple Mount.

Let us not make the same tragic mistake regarding the Temple Mount that Yesha leaders made regarding the settlements. What mistake am I referring to? Since the very beginning of the Gush Emunim movement, my father, HY"D, warned that if we do NOT deal with the "negative" side of the mitzvah of yishuv ha'aretz- i.e., expelling the gentiles- the settlements will not last, G-d forbid, as the Torah explicitly states. But his warnings fell on deaf ears. Settlement leaders preferred dealing with the "positive" side of yishuv ha'aretz not wanting to jeopardize public support by discussing the Arab threat. We see the results today: The Arabs have risen up in rebellion; the Left labels all the settlers "extremists" anyway, etc., etc.

There is an important difference, though, between yishuv ha'aretz and building the Temple. Regarding yishuv ha'aretz, Jews were able to erect settlements and temporarily ignore (with the help of their illusions) the Arab powder keg that lay beneath their entire enterprise. But regarding building the Temple, even this is impossible. What will they do? Build the Temple on the second floor of the mosque?

The REMOVAL of the mosques is an OBLIGATION that PRECEDES the obligation to build the Temple. One must turn from evil (sur me'ra) before one can do good (asei tov). And so, we must speak about removing the mosques just as we speak about building the Temple. What are we afraid of? That they will call us fanatics? THEY ALREADY DO!!!!

Darka Shel Torah, 1996

Shabbat Shalom!

RARE- Rabbi Meir Kahane's HY"D last speech "JEW, LEAVE THE EXILE" at Z.E.E.R.O Conference

Differing Views On Meir Kahane | Luke Ford

I read an interesting discussion between two of my Facebook friends.

Daniel: “Grind up their bodies [of Arab terrorists] and feed it to pigs. Wait for the pigs to excrete them. Put it all in a gift wrapped box and send it to Abbas with a note saying: “The future of Palestine”.

If the Israeli government had the wisdom to listen to the prophetic words of Rabbi Kahane and the balls to implement his ideas back in the 80’s, the thousands of holy Jews who were murdered by savage Arab scumbags would still be alive today. But the short sighted Israeli leaders of the time, whose fear of being called racists by the world overcame their duty to protect the lives of their citizens, made suicidal deals with terrorists. And despite their liberal policies and their foolishly giving away precious Jewish land, they were STILL called racists, while our people were being slaughtered. Only now is the government finally coming closer to Rabbi Kahane’s ideas. Unfortunately, not quickly enough.

I’ve heard the Rabbi speak many times throughout the 70’s and 80’s. His love for his people and his desire to protect them shone through in every speech. He spoke the truth about Jews and Arabs. But most people are incapable of accepting the truth, even when they’re staring right at it.

So, like many biblical prophets, his words were mostly ignored, and he became one of the many victims of the Arab terrorism he tried to prevent.

Some of the Jewish blood that was spilled these last three decades is on the hands of ignorant fools like Christoph Donnellan, who created an environment of undeserved hostility toward Rabbi Kahane, but, in fact, didn’t even deserve to be in the same room as him, may his memory be a blessing.”

Christoph Donnellan: Good expose of ‘Rabbi’ Kahane, ‘The False Prophet: Life and Times of Meir Kahane, by Robert I. Friedman. Google it.

He was a huckster and con artist who regularly did the Gefilte fish circuit in L.A. and NYC every time he needed money.

Half his speech in L.A to a bizarre audience of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, most of whom looked like extras from Fiddler on The Roof, he was asking for Gelt.

DANIEL: Christoph, you’re a lying piece of crap!

I attended many of Rabbi Kahane’s LA speeches. They were usually held in a synagogue called B’nai David-Judea, which was, at the time, Conservative. Not Orthodox. I don’t recall seeing one person in chasidic garb. The very large shul was filled to capacity with mostly Modern Orthodox and Conservative Jews, who were united in their concern for the welfare of Israel. And there were NO requests for money.

As a proponent of Arab terrorism against Israel, you are used to being lied to by the likes of Al Jazeera and the liberal media outlets that feed your inherent bias. Now, being the good little brainwashed propagandist you are, you fabricate your own outrageous lies, like the makeup of an audience you were never part of. But unlike your feeble minded friends, I WAS THERE, and I’m calling you out as the lier you so obviously are.

The terrorists murdered Rabbi Kahane, even though he was no longer in the Knesset, because he spread the light of truth on the darkness of Islamic lies.

Nowadays, more Israelis, including those in the Knesset, now understand the folly of peace talks with bloodthirsty savages and are waking up from their Oslo-induced comas and starting to admit Kahane was right. But back then, he was the only one with the guts to speak the truth. Those Arab rats knew they could not win their PR war when someone was shining the light of truth in their faces. So they snuffed that light out. And it’s taken a quarter of a century and thousands of lost Jewish lives for Israeli leaders to start rekindling that light.

Christoph Donnellan: ‘Terrorists’ didn’t murder the FBI informant, phony Rabbi, and associate of the mafia in NYC, Michael King aka ‘Meir Kahane,’ but some mentally ill Egyptian national. I went to a speech by ‘Kahane’ in 1988-89 out in the San Fernando Valley and the bulk of his audience were rather grubby Ultra-Orthodox Jews who looked and smelled as they had been alergic to soap and water for some time, and the venue was not a Synagogue. Other than the orthodox there were real life terrorists, some of whom are now deceased, from the Jewish Defense League (JDL).

"There's No Coexisting With Cancer,” “Kahane Was Right” - FailedMessiah.com

A fire police believe to a likely arson damaged the playground of the leading Hebrew-Arab bilingual school in Jerusalem Saturday night. "Kahane was right," "There's no coexisting with cancer," and other anti-Arab slogans were spray-painted on the building, as well.

Above and above right: "Kahane was right" painted on a wall of the Max Rayne Hand-in-Hand School in Jerusalem, 11-29-2014 (Jerusalem Fire Department)

Updated at 12:14 am CST 11-30-2014

"There's No Coexisting With Cancer,” “Kahane Was Right”
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

A fire police believe to a likely arson damaged the playground and building of the leading Hebrew-Arab bilingual school in Jerusalem Saturday night, Ha’aretz reported.

"Kahane was right," "There's no coexisting with cancer," "Enough assimilation," Death to Arabs" were reportedly spray-painted on the building, as well.

The 16-year-old Max Rayne Hand-in-Hand Jerusalem School is reportedly Israel’s largest Jewish-Arab institution and is co-headed by both a Jewish and an Arab principal. It’s parent body, Hand-in-Hand, is a nonprofit organization.

Over the past few months the school was reportedly repeatedly hit with similar racist graffiti, but this is the school’s first apparent arson.

The fire started in the playground in the school but reportedly burned parts of the structure itself, including classrooms, and bears hallmarks of arson.

"Even if they manage to dirty the school's walls, they will not manage to bring down our enterprise [of civil cooperation]. In addition to denouncing [these actions] expressing support, we invite the entire Israeli public to join us in the building of Jewish-Arab civil partnership in Israel. We will continue to develop our educational and social project, where every day 1,200 students come to study, some 200 teachers come to teach, and in which thousands of family members are involved,” the executive director of Hand in Hand, Shuli Dichter, said in a statement.

Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat condemned the incident, but appeared to be downplaying its racist, anti-Arab aspects.

"We will not allow pyromaniacs and criminals who take the law into their own hands to disrupt our daily lives. We will continue to denounce the extremists and do whatever it takes to restore the quiet to Jerusalem,” Barkat said – as if there could be some justification for the apparent arson but was condemning it primarily because was carried out by vigilantes rather than law enforcement.

Barkat also said the he spoke with Jerusalem’s Police chief "whose top priority is the investigation and the security of Jerusalem's children.”

Israel’s tepid and often nonexistent response to anti-Arab hate crimes and discrimination has drawn international condemnation, including from the United States Department of State, and a growing number of Israeli journalists and social commentators note that leading figures in Israeli life – like Barkat – are often tone deaf regarding this discrimination.

While it is not yet known who painted the graffiti at the Hand-in-Hand school or who set the fire, Israel’s internal security service commonly known as the Shin Bet has said that many, if not most, of the “price tag” anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian hate crimes committed over the past several years were committed by students and disciples of Chabad Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh.

Ginsburgh – who holds no official position in Chabad – is the senior rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the radical West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. He is also one of the most popular Chabad rabbis in the country with a large following among Chabad Anglo-Israelis, ba’al teshuvas and West Bank settlers and is seen by many as a spiritual successor to the late radical Rabbi Meir Kahane, who is considered by Israel and the US to have been a terrorist.

Shma Yisrael vs. Allahu Akbar by Rabbi Meir Kahane ZT"L HY"D (November 1989)

Nowhere was it more clearly seen. The real meaning of the struggle in the Holy Land was never more blatantly revealed than in the stabbing of a Jew in Jerusalem, recently. And now is it important for us to understand this reality, for if we do not we will not have the slightest idea of what the struggle in Israel is all about and, far worse, how to win it.

Yehuda Avahami, a young man who prays daily at the Western Wall, was walking last week through the so-called Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Just inside Sha'ar Shchem (Damascus Gate) he was attacked by an Arab who stabbed him in the back. And here is the crux of the story: As the Arab stabbed the Jew, the Arab shouted in triumph, "Allahu Akbar!" (Allah is great). The Jew, attacked and feeling that he was in danger of death, shouted, "Shma Yisrael!"

And herein lies the real meaning of the struggle. And herein lies the shame of the struggle.

It has become the slogan, the war call,  the triumphant  shout of every Moslem attack on Jews. Allahu Akbar! The Arab who  drove the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem bus over the cliff, shouted it.  The Arab who attacked my nephew-soldier on the streets of Jerusalem, shouted it. It is the theme of the struggle of the Moslems against the Jewish state. And it is the theme of attack, of power, of defeating the Jewish enemy,  of defeating the G-d of  the Jews, of triumph for Islam. Allahu Akbar! is the voice of the Moslem attacking the Jewish victim.

And the victim? He cries out, Shema Yisrael...

Shma Yisrael becomes the symbol of the victim, of the Jew attacked, of the dying Jew. The great concept of Shma Yisrael, which was meant to be the triumphant and powerful and resounding cry of the Jewish victory and the Omnipotence of the G-d of the Jews, becomes a thin, small, quiet voice in the desert.  The voice of Kiddush Hashem, Jewish sanctification, becomes one of degradation, of Jewish defeat and death.

And that is Hillul Hashem, desecration of the Name, and that worst of Jewish crimes dare not be allowed to continue lest His awesome wrath rage against us.

"Shma Yisrael!" Hear O Israel! This is the way the mashuach milchama, the priest who was ordained as the one who led the Jews into battle, would begin his speech to the Jewish army, prepared to go into battle:

"Shma Yisrael!  Hear O Israel! You are coming near this day to the battle against your enemies. Let your heart not be faint; do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not be broken before them. For the L-rd, your G-d, is the One who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you." (Deuteronomy 20:3-4)

Shma Yisrael is not the plaintive cry of a Jewish victim, but the clarion call of the mashuach milchama, the appointed  Priest of War. It is not a numbing prayer of defeat but a certain, assured call of triumph.  Not the voice of the victim but the roar of the conqueror.  It is the affirmation of the real meaning of Shma Yisrael: "Hear O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One - the only One, the all-powerful One, the all-conquering One, the One who is over all gods, including Allah."

Shma Yisrael is the voice of the Jewish Warrior-Priest to the Jewish warriors, not to the Jewish victims. It is the affirmation of the power and Omnipotence of the Jewish G-d and the assurance that faith in Him guarantees victory. In the words of the Talmud (Sotah 42a): "Why does the message begin with the words 'Shma Yisrael', in particular? Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon Bar- Yochai: the All Mighty said to Israel: even though you only observed the mitzvah of 'Shma Yisrael' in the morning and in the evening, you will not be given over to your enemies."

You think that is an easy thing, Jew? Think again.

Shma Yisrael  is the symbol, the utterance of real faith.  Real faith.  Not the plastic faith of theory in which the Jew pays copious and very "frum", pious, lip service to the All Mighty, only to find a hundred "halachic" reasons why to back away from confrontation with the enemy at the moment of reality. Faith means believing the cry of the mashuach milchama whose Shma Yisrael is an integral part of, "Let your heart not be faint... do not be afraid!"  And in the words of the Sifri (Shoftim 192): "They come with the victory of flesh and blood, and you come with the victory of the All Mighty". And the Talmud, Sotah (ibid.), expands on this: "The Philistines came with the victory of Goliath; what was his end? In the end he fell with the sword and they fell with him, and you are not that way.  For the L-rd, your Gd, is the One who goes with you, to fight for you..."

We have taken a Shma Yisrael  that was meant to be the slogan of Jewish power and Omnipotence of our G-d, and turned it into a plaintive cry of a victim.  We took a cry of power and turned it into weakness. "Kol ha'Shem ba'koach! The voice of the L-rd is powerful!" (Psalms 29:4). And if that is true, so must  the voice of His people be powerful.  "Who is the King of glory? The L-rd, strong and mighty, the L-rd, mighty in battle" (ibid., 24:8). And if that is true, then we must crown Him king in battle by our being strong and mighty in battle.

The reason that the Moslem shouts Allahu Akbar is because we allow him to think so. On that glorious day in 1967 when Jewish troops, the Tzivot ha'Shem, the host and ranks of the All Mighty, swept into the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there were no shouts of Allahu Akbar. There was only fear and terror in the eyes and hearts of the Moslems who saw, and felt and knew - "Shma Yisrael, Hashem Echad!"

It was the Jewish retreat and fear of the world, of the nations, that reinstilled in the heart of the Moslem the belief that Allahu Akbar.  It was the  terrible lack of faith in the words of the priest of battle, "Do not be afraid.... for the L-rd is the One who goes with you, to fight for you," that brought on us this terrible resurgence in faith and strength and arrogance of the Moslem. In direct proportion to Jewish lack of faith and fearful prostration before the gentiles did the Moslems grow in certainty and confidence in Allah.  What a terrible indictment of the Jewish people! What a terrible humiliation that Jews, the small and the great, talk about "the prohibition of antagonizing the nations." As if we were still in Pinsk or Casablanca.

And so a Moslem proudly attacks a Jew and cries, Allahu Akbar, and the Jew, in fear, cries out: Shma Yisrael. Not as a war cry but as a death chant. Hillul Hashem!

(From "Beyond Words", Vol. 6)