At that time, Ben-Gvir, who was seen as being more moderate and more politically skilled than Ben-Ari, took over party leadership.

In 2022, an alliance between Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party and Bezalel Smotrich’s messianic Religious Nationalists resulted in their candidates’ winning 15 Knesset seats, becoming the third-largest political bloc in Israel and Netanyahu’s primary coalition partner.

Ben-Gvir’s position as co-leader of this extreme right-wing alliance is so strong that his agreement to join Netanyahu’s coalition government includes a commitment to remove the clause in Israel’s Basic Law disqualifying a person from serving in the Knesset for inciting racism – for which Kahane was first banned, and of which Ben-Gvir has also been convicted.

What is Ben-Gvir saying about Rabbi Kahane and his activity?

In his November 2022 speech in honor of Kahane, Ben-Gvir credited Kahane and the Jewish Defense League for leading the successful fight against antisemitism and, specifically, in freeing Jews from the USSR.

During the Cold War, it was extremely difficult for Soviet citizens to leave the country. This put religious minorities like Jews, Protestants and Roman Catholics – all of whom were persecuted by the atheist regime – at great risk. In the 1970s and 1980s, Jewish communities across the U.S. mobilized on behalf of Soviet Jews, seeking to get them safely out of the country, often to Israel.

Throughout this period, the Jewish Defense League repeatedly physically attacked Soviet officials and cultural figures in the U.S. The group took over a New York City synagogue to demonstrate against Soviet diplomats whose offices were across the street.

Members poured blood on a Soviet official in Washington, D.C. They also set off an explosive device during a performance by a Soviet dance troupe. A bomb planted in the office of an agent finding work for Soviet entertainers killed the secretary, Iris Kones.

In my view – and the views of many Jewish leaders at the time – these efforts did not encourage the Soviet Union to change its policies or to release imprisoned dissidents. They were also exclusively focused on Russian Jews, rather than other religious minorities in the USSR, who were in a similar position as Roman Catholics and evangelicals. For the Jewish Defense League and others in Israel like new Israeli Cabinet member Avi Maoz, it was a battle to protect Jews from threats, not a struggle to improve human rights for all.