HABAYTA!

Photo Credit: courtesy author

Book cover picturing Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Among the many hats he wore, Rabbi Meir Kahane was an “Aliyah Commando.” The annual yahrtzeit gathering honoring his memory, may Hashem avenge his murder, will be held on November 19 in Jerusalem. To remind young readers, Rabbi Kahane was one of the original columnists of The Jewish Press. He was the first activist on behalf of Soviet Jewry. After making Aliyah, he formed the Kach Party which was banned in Israel after it threatened to win a dozen seats in the Knesset. An outstanding Torah Scholar, Rabbi Kahane’s books and articles in The Jewish Press found a wide readership. Rejected by the Jewish establishment in America, he inspired thousands of young people to make Aliyah. During a speaking appearance in New York City in 1990, he was murdered by an Arab terrorist. With his prophetic spirit, he stridently warned the Jews of the Diaspora that the era of the “good life” was destined to end. He published the following Aliyah Campaign Plan in 1972.  

HABAYTA! 

EMERGENCY ALIYAH CAMPAIGN 

By Rabbi Meir Kahane. From his book, “Time to Go Home.”  

1. To begin an immediate urgent campaign in every Jewish community to convince Jews of the gravity and reality of the situation and to persuade them to take urgent steps to return to Israel. 
2. Toward this end, speakers are to be trained and sent all over America into every local Jewish community.
3. Literature will be printed which will emphasize this theme and include facts and arguments concerning the deepening crisis in America, including the dangerous effects anti-Jewish groups will have of the future of Jewry in America and on the ever-growing cancer of assimilation.

4.To also educate toward the POSITIVE reasons for Jews to live in Israel such as the normalcy of the Jewish People in a Jewish State with a Jewish Culture. 

5. To register individual, families, and whole communities and institutions to return. This registration will include complete information on the background, profession or occupation, skills, family situation and income in order to help these people obtain employment and inexpensive housing in appropriate areas in Israel.
6. The Aliyah project will concentrate particularly on mass door-to-door campaigning in urban areas where social and economic (and safety) conditions have worsened to a point where Jews are seriously willing to consider Aliyah.
7. The campaign will place specific emphasis on the religious obligation of observant Jews to return, and the campaign will be promoted in religious institutions and neighborhoods.
8. Local branches of the project will be created in every Jewish community. These branches will lead the educational campaign in the communities as well as serve as the national movement’s vehicle to register people who wish to return.
9. It will inform people fully of the social and economic problems involved in mass Aliyah, particularly in the fields of housing, employment, and schooling so as to act as a counselor and agent for individual Jews seeking to return.
10. It will gather long lists of names and present the lists to the appropriate Aliyah agencies and departments for the goal of working with them to create viable cities, villages, and settlements for returnees with inexpensive housing accommodations, planned facilities and jobs. 15 – 20 percent of the residents in those areas will be Israeli.
11. The organizers of the campaign will review the professions, occupations, and skills of each individual with Aliyah authorities in order to facilitate job placement.
12. The organizers and branch directors in their local communities will induce private investors to create employment for the olim by investing in industries, factories, etc. which will create jobs.  
13. The project organizers will work with the Government of Israel and private investors to ascertain exactly which type of industries are needed, with the highest chance of guaranteeing a fair profit, sufficient to induce private capital to invest. 
14. The local directors will hold regular meetings of Jews who are interested in Aliyah during which discussions regarding Jewish Identity, Israel, and Aliyah we be promoted.
15. In Israel, special emphasis will be placed on the cities, villages and settlements in Judea and Samaria, equipping them with the needed housing and economic expansion to house large numbers of olim.    
16. The project will work to establish stronger security and defense groups in Jewish communities throughout America in order to protect them as conditions become worse and to win time for Jews to understand the pressing need to leave.

The above is only a brief outline of the HABAYTA MOVEMENT which must be created immediately. Yesterday was the proper time for the beginning of such a movement. Today is very late. Tomorrow may be too late. 

The danger is real. Our world is very different today from what is was only a few years ago. Time moves much more swiftly. Events overtake us with unexpected and awesome speed. We no longer have the time to anticipate and to plan as we once did. We are bidden to act now! 

For information regarding the memorial for Rabbi Kahane, please click HERE