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Meir Kahane’s War Against Liberalism: Is it Still Relevant?
November 18, 2021 @ 5:00 pm
November 18
5 p.m.
Keene Faculty Center (Dauer Hall, 228 Buckman Drive)
Aside from being an American Jewish gadfly, a militant rabbi, and founder of the Jewish Defense League, Meir Kahane was an unrelenting critic of American Jewish liberalism. His belief that liberalism threatens Jews as much or more than antisemitism also translated to his criticism of the state of Israel and its left-wing liberal government until the election of Menachem Begin in 1977. In this talk, Shaul Magid will explore Kahane’s views on liberalism and ask whether it still speaks to the present moment in America and Israeli Jewry.
Refreshments to follow
Speaker:
Shaul Magid is Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He works on Jewish thought and culture from the sixteenth century to the present, focusing on the Jewish mystical and philosophical tradition. His three latest books are The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s Commentary to the Gospels (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism(Academic Studies Press, 2019), and Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton University Press, 2021). He is presently working on a book examining the political theology of R. Joel Teitelbaum of Satmar. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research.