MESSIAH MODE Rise of the Jewish Far-Right by David Sheen | coming in 2026 from Or Books

The demand that Israel wage a holy war of extermination against its non-Jewish neighbors did not emerge spontaneously on October 7, 2023; that expansionist theology had been preached and preserved in Israel’s public discourse for decades by the disciples of arch-racist American-Israeli rabbi Meir Kahane. Beginning in the early 1970s, Kahane broke a core taboo of Israeli politics by becoming the first MP to openly incite for the expulsion of all Palestinians that remained in the country. And while he and the son that succeeded him were both later assassinated, the messianic movement they inspired – colloquially called Kahanism – has ever since been at the vanguard of Israel’s monarchist camp. Many ethnic groups have a monarchist camp, of course: an extreme right-wing faction that wants to control and enslave, expel and exterminate others. Over the decades Kahane’s acolytes have been the most murderous of these, inciting race riots and inspiring dozens of lone-gun assassins. Since 2010 local journalist David Sheen has published interviews with leaders and followers of the organization, reporting from their raucous street rallies and their provocations in the parliament, as they drag Israeli politics further than ever before to the far-right. When Israel’s longest-serving prime minister saw his support slipping on account of corruption charges, he began mainstreaming the Kahane movement, so he could bring them into the Knesset. Once this red line was crossed, Sheen intensified his research, gaining access to private archives and disgruntled whistleblowers, as well as the top US and Israeli law enforcement officials who investigate them. After publishing tens of thousands of words correcting the record of their crimes, Sheen’s first full-length book exposes the how the American Jewish community’s biggest racists bankrolled and trampolined their Israeli corollaries into cabinet ministries that now control both regular police forces and newly-formed sectarian militias. Decades after the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, his messianic followers are finally realizing his dream to fuse state and synagogue, shifting Israel into MESSIAH MODE.