Tax-Exempt Funds Back Kahane School
By Hilary Appelman
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 18, 1997; 1:44 p.m. EDT
KFAR TAPUAH, West Bank (AP) -- An unlikely
beneficiary of U.S. tax benefits is a West Bank
religious school that openly promotes the
expulsion of Arabs from biblical Israel.
The school keeps alive the extremist ideology
of founder Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was
assassinated in New York in 1990.
The two main Israeli organizations of Kahane
followers -- Kahane Chai and Kach -- are
outlawed in Israel and listed as terrorist
organizations in the United States, where they
are barred from raising funds.
Yet a group devoted to raising funds for the
school, run by Kahane Chai activists, is
registered as a non-profit organization with
the Internal Revenue Service. Contributions to
it are tax-deductible.
The yeshiva, located in the Kfar Tapuah
settlement 18 miles east of Tel Aviv, is run by
Benjamin Kahane, the late rabbi's son.
Its 15 students, ages 16 to 20, meet in an
unmarked white house, where they write articles
and pamphlets that are distributed at high
schools and rallies around the country.
Lenny Goldberg, an immigrant from the New York
borough of Queens and an associate of Kahane,
said the students also run camps at which they
teach self-defense and shooting.
``The purpose of the yeshiva is to create a
scholar-warrior,'' he said, as well as to keep
alive the teachings of the late rabbi.
``What we learn no other yeshivas teach,''
Goldberg said. ``We have to throw the Arabs out
of the land. That's what we say -- that's the
answer.''
Israeli authorities confiscated the guns of
Kahane followers in 1994 and outlawed Kach and
Kahane Chai after Kahane supporter Baruch
Goldstein gunned down 29 Muslim worshipers in a
Hebron mosque.
Goldberg said followers are trying to get new
weapons from sympathetic army officers.
``We're working on that, but it's going to take
some time,'' he said.
In Washington, IRS spokesman Steve Pyrek
confirmed to The Associated Press that the
American Friends of Yeshivat Harav Meir is a
tax-deductible charity in good standing.
Records on file with the New York Attorney
General's office show the group has failed to
file required financial reports for three
years. In 1993, the last year it filed a
report, the group received $116,459 in
tax-deductible donations.
Bentzion Greenberger, an attorney at the
Israeli government agency that registers
non-profit organizations, said Yeshivat Harav
Meir applied for non-profit status several
years ago. The request was denied ``on the
basis that it would be a front for non-yeshiva
activities that were suspected to be illegal,''
he said.
However, the AP found the school registered as
a non-profit under the name Kfar Tapuah
Yeshiva, although it had failed to file
financial reports.
A woman who answered the telephone at Kfar
Tapuah Yeshiva confirmed it was Benjamin
Kahane's yeshiva.
(c) Copyright 1997 The Associated Press
