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Podcast: New Books in American Studies
Episode: Shaul Magid, "Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Description: Rabbi Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990.In Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton UP, 2021), Shaul Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race...