Kahane Backers Rededicate Themselves to Cause

LOS ANGELES —  Hours after the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, teary-eyed followers of the one-time Brooklyn sportswriter gathered in anger inside a North Hollywood synagogue Tuesday and vowed to try harder to realize his dream of an Arab-free Israel.

At a press conference in the synagogue’s sanctuary, where two photos of Kahane’s stern, bearded visage were displayed next to a cabinet that held biblical scrolls of the Torah, Rabbi Dov Aharoni, former national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, said the slain rabbi was a martyr.

“There were those who would say that he was a fringe element, but take a look at people like me, who kept his picture on the wall in my closet,” Aharoni said. “Now we are coming out.”

Aharoni predicted that as a result of Kahane’s assassination Monday night, “the Arab population of Israel, if not today then 10, 20, 40 years from now, those Arabs will go,” he said.

Irv Rubin, who replaced Kahane as national JDL chairman in 1985, said nothing specific about whether the movement would return to its violent past, which traces back to the 1972 bombing of concert impresario Sol Hurok, in which three members of the organization faced criminal charges that later were dropped.

The group suffered its greatest blow in 1985, when federal authorities said that several JDL associates were suspected of planting a bomb that killed Alex Odeh, the western regional director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Rubin, who was not named as a suspect, said at that time: “I have no tears for Mr. Odeh. He got exactly what he deserved.”

Odeh was killed Oct. 11, 1985 when a bomb exploded in his Santa Ana office. He and his wife, Norma, lived in Orange.

“Violence begets violence and it’s not the right way to resolve conflicts,” said Sami Odeh, brother of the internationally known Arab rights leader.

That Kahane was a victim of violence was not a surprise, said Odeh, a Palestinian also living in Orange. “He certainly did preach violence. . . . It’s unfortunate that Rabbi Kahane made quite a few enemies of himself.”

Rubin acknowledged that its New York operations, where Kahane founded the JDL in 1968 to attack muggers with baseball bats, are dormant and will have to be “revitalized.”

Others in the Southern California Jewish community countered those claims, saying Kahane never managed to win more than a few hundred adherents despite the wide publicity given his controversial views.

“They’re a fringe,” said Rabbi Laura Geller, executive director of the American Jewish Congress.

But Rabbi Chaim Braverman, Southern California coordinator of Kach International, the fund-raising wing of Kahane’s Israeli political party, claimed to have 5,000 supporters throughout the region who are ready to spread more leaflets, write more articles and deliver more talks at synagogues and private homes.

“This act of violence and terror, by an Arab, only confirms the accuracy of Rabbi Kahane’s views,” Braverman said.

Times staff writer Kristina Lindgren contributed to this report from Orange County.