Racist Rabbi Welcomed in Toronto

Source: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs | July 1991, Page 58

Kahane’s Successor Welcomed in Toronto

John Dirlik

Lacking the oratorical skills but not the anti-Arab venom of his militant mentor, the successor of assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of more than 300 at the Shaarei Tefilah synagogue in Toronto.

Rabbi Avraham Toledano, who now heads the rabidly racist Kach movement, urged the mass expulsion of the 1. 8 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories. “The Jewish state, the Jewish land, belongs only to the Jewish people. There is no room for a people that doesn’t recognize Jewish sovereignty,” he said.

The 33-year-old Moroccan-born rabbi, who now lives in the West Bank town of Kiryat Arba, ridiculed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for being too soft in his attempt to crush the Palestinian uprising.

“Instead of having Jewish pride, we have Jewish self-hatred, ” he lamented.

During the lecture, sponsored by the Jewish Defense League, Toledano paid tribute to Rabbi Kahane. “Think about all the values of the Rabbi (Kahane), and with God’s help the Messiah will come, ” he said.

Toledano urged members of the Toronto congregation to make collective aliya (emigration to Israel) and build new synagogues in Israel. “We have many mosques that will soon be liberated,” he promised, “but maybe you don’t like our style.”

John Dirlik, a free-lance writer from Montreal, Quebec, writes on Canadian and Middle East affairs.