Is Ben-Gvir Becoming a More Family-Friendly Version of Kahanism?

Has the avowed Kahanist ‘become more moderate’? Judge for yourself
Yossi Zamir/Shatil Stock
Yossi Zamir/Shatil Stock
Dr. Tomer Persico is a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Rubinstein Fellow at Reichman University and a Senior Research Scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His fields of expertise include contemporary spirituality, Jewish modern identity, Jewish renewal, and forms of secularization and religiosity in Israel. His first book, The Jewish Meditative Tradition (Hebrew) was published by Tel Aviv University Press in 2016, and his second book, In God’s Image:

“MK Itamar Ben-Gvir’s promise, in an interview with Sefi Ovadia and Yanir Cozin on Army Radio, to expel MK Ofer Cassif from the country, might at first glance be seen as an encouraging sign – at least he isn’t targeting Arabs exclusively.

Kahanism is etched in the public memory as a sick, racist doctrine on an ideological par with the Nuremberg Laws. Rabbi Meir Kahane proposed segregating Jews and Arabs at beaches, banning marriage between Jews and Arabs, denying Arabs the right to vote and to be elected and making Jerusalem, by law, a city in which Jews alone could reside.”

Read the complete op-ed on Haaretz

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