Shaul Magid’s essay “Kahane Nation?” (Sept. 10, 2026) moves quickly from Meir Kahane’s advocacy for violence in the late twentieth century to American Jews buying firearms in response to antisemitism in the past few years. Magid then reminds readers that Kahane’s movement provided security at synagogues and protested anti-Israel events. “Sound familiar?” he asks.
That rhetorical question is the problem with his “argument.” Yes, synagogue security sounds familiar. So do Jewish fears of antisemitism, doubts about institutional protection, protests against anti-Israel activity, and the decision by some Jews to arm themselves. But familiarity does not establish ideological identity. A protected synagogue is not the Jewish Defense League. A licensed firearm is not collective retaliation. Distrust produced by institutional failure is not the rejection of liberal democracy. Magid invites the reader to cross those distances through association rather than argument.
He is not wrong that something has changed. American Jews are more afraid. The American Jewish Committee’s 2025 survey found that 78 percent felt less safe because of October 7 and the subsequent war; 66 percent believed Jews were less secure than one year earlier. Jewish institutions have increased physical security, and some Jews have sought firearms training. Some Jewish communities and political actors have also moved toward genuinely illiberal positions. Magid has identified a real phenomenon. His irresponsibility lies in misclassifying it.
Magid confuses the return of conditions that made Kahane’s questions powerful with the adoption of the answers that made Kahane an extremist. Kahane asked whether antisemitism could return in the United States, whether institutions would always protect Jews, whether assimilation could weaken Jewish continuity, and whether Jews sometimes needed to assume greater responsibility for their own security. Those questions do not belong to Kahane. Recognizing their force is not Kahanism.
Kahanism begins with Kahane’s answers. He embraced extralegal militancy and retaliatory violence. In Israel, his Kach party advocated the removal of Arabs, the imposition of Jewish law, and Jewish control over the entire land. Israel’s Supreme Court upheld Kach’s exclusion from the 1988 election because its program incited racism and undermined the democratic character of the state. These were not incidental features of an otherwise ordinary program of communal protection. They constituted the political meaning of Kahanism.
Magid says that Kahane’s worldview has returned “detached from his views on violence.” But violence was not incidental to Kahane’s answer to Jewish vulnerability. Once it is removed, behavior that requires no Kahanist commitments can become evidence that Kahanism has returned: Jews train at shooting ranges, come armed to synagogue, protest anti-Israel events, or treat some forms of anti-Zionism as antisemitism. These examples may raise questions of prudence, free speech, institutional mission, or political judgment. None by itself demonstrates racial hierarchy, forced removal, theocracy, unequal citizenship, or rejection of democracy.
Magid consequently borrows different parts of his case from different groups. When he needs breadth, he points to widespread anxiety, synagogue security, firearms ownership, Zionism, and institutional distrust. When he needs ideological extremism, he points to violent actors, domination, and Kahane’s historical program. He never establishes that these are the same people or that the attitudes form one coherent worldview. Ordinary Jews provide the scale. Genuine extremists provide the ideological content. Kahane’s name joins them together.
The instability appears in Magid’s own language. His opening announces a “ubiquitous return” of Kahanism. Later the claim narrows to “many Jewish circles,” then “some” Jews and “certain sectors.” Near the end, America is not quite “Kahane Nation,” only closer than ever. These phrases may describe different phenomena, but together they reveal the evidentiary problem: Magid has examples of extremism and evidence of widespread anxiety, not evidence that the anxiety has cohered into the ideology he names.
His treatment of Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch shows the cost of this imprecision. Magid writes that Hirsch called for Hebrew Union College not to admit rabbinical students who are not Zionists. But the report he links says Hirsch objected to the seminary ordaining anti-Zionist clergy. Admission and ordination are not the same institutional act; “not Zionist” and “anti-Zionist” are not the same position. More importantly, the same report records Hirsch condemning “closed-minded chauvinistic particularism” within Israel’s government and calling violent settlers who assault Palestinians a disgrace. Those limits on Jewish power are precisely the kind of anti-violent commitments that distinguish his Zionism from Kahanism.
There is also a large territory between Jewish passivity and Jewish extremism. The Secure Community Network coordinates security for Jewish organizations, conducts threat assessments, trains communities, and works with law enforcement. In 2025, the Department of Homeland Security awarded $94 million to help protect 512 Jewish faith-based organizations from targeted violence and terrorism. This model is collective, explicitly Jewish, responsive to real danger, and compatible with democratic law. Jews can conclude that institutions require help without concluding that liberal institutions are futile.
None of this means every Jewish response is prudent. Some security measures may be excessive. Some accusations of antisemitism are exaggerated or used to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel. Some Jewish political movements have become less liberal. Some contemporary Jews really are Kahanists. Those distinctions are not concessions around the edge of the argument. They are the argument.
Calling all these things Kahanism has two consequences. First, it places ordinary Jews responding to insecurity under the moral shadow of an extremist — without establishing that they have accepted his defining commitments. Second, it damages the category needed to identify people who actually embrace racism, coercion, violence, unequal citizenship, or antidemocratic rule.
Magid warns that America may be moving toward “Kahane Nation.” The proper response is not to deny that Kahane’s questions have become more urgent. It is to insist upon the difference between asking those questions and embracing his answers. The return of Kahane’s questions does not require the return of Kahane’s answers. Magid’s irresponsibility is to write as though it does.
—Allen Zeesman