Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane
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Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane (Hebrew: בנימין זאב כהנא) (October 3, 1966 – December 31, 2000) was the son of Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Born in New York City, he emigrated to Israel with his family at the age of four, in 1971. He was a young Israeli Orthodox Jewish scholar and rabbi who was most famous for his leadership of Kahane Chai, a far Right Wing Zionist party that broke off of Meir Kahane's Kach after Meir Kahane's assassination in 1990.
Kahane and Kahane Chai advocated the forced transfer of all Arabs from Israel and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy in Israel. This world view is shared with Meir Kahane's original Kach movement, for which it was declared racist and disqualified in 1988 by the Israeli Supreme court, and with the other splinter group, the Baruch Marzel-led Kach.
In 1994 both groups were declared "terrorist" and outlawed by the Israeli Government, following their statements in support of the mass killings of 29 Arabs in the Cave of the Patriarchs by Baruch Goldstein, himself a Kach supporter. They claimed that Goldstein's actions were intended to forestall a planned mass attack on the Jews of Hebron that intelligence activities had discovered and the IDF had indicated that it would not take action. (Similar decisions have been made by the IDF as recently as the end of 2006, when the IDF was banned from opening fire on Kassam rocket launching teams in Gaza, even if the team is seen actively setting up and launching rockets.)
Kahane was the author of The Haggadah of The Jewish Idea, a commentary based on his father's teachings of the Passover Haggadah read at the Passover Seder. He wrote a Torah portion sheet called Darka Shel Torah ("The Way of the Torah") that was distributed for the weekly Torah portions.
Kahane was in New York a few weeks before he was assassinated. He participated in a fundraising dinner and officiated at the wedding of a supporter.
He was murdered near the Jewish village of Ofra along with his wife Talya in an apparently Palestinian assassination on December 31, 2000, as they were driving with their five daughters from Jerusalem to their home in the Israeli Yeshatown of Kfar Tapuach in Samaria, (West Bank) during the second Al-Aqsa Intifada.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office in 2001 announced the arrest of three members of Force 17 who were allegedly involved in the killing of Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane and his wife Talia in December 2000.
According to the statement, PLO leader Col. Mahmoud Damra, also known as Abu Awad, was responsible for arming and instructing the three men, who were identified as Talal Ghassan, 37, a senior Force 17 member in Ramallah, Marzouk Abu Naim, 43, and Na'man Nofel.
Some Jews, notably Barry Hamish, have speculated that the targeted nature of the assassination indicates that the slayings may have been carried out or co-ordinated by the Shabak.
