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 theology had been preached and practiced in Israel for decades by the disciples of American-Israeli arch-racist rabbi Meir Kahane. Beginning in the early 1970s, Kahane broke a core taboo of Israeli politics by becoming the first lawmaker to openly incite for the expulsion of all Palestinians. While he and the son that succeeded him were both eventually assassinated, the messianic movement they inspired – colloquially called Kahanism – has ever since been at the vanguard of Israel’s monarchist camp, the farthest-right 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. For a decade, award-winning investigative journalist David Sheen published interviews with leaders and followers of the organization, reporting from their raucous street rallies and provocations in the parliament. In 2019, when Israel’s longest-serving prime minister saw his support slip over corruption charges, he began mainstreaming the Kahane movement, so that it could re-enter the Knesset and ensure his continued rule. Sheen intensified his research, gaining access to private archives and disgruntled whistleblowers, as well as the top US and Israeli law enforcement officials that 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 the country's security forces. Decades after the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, his messianic followers are well on their way to realizing his dream to fuse state and synagogue, shifting Israel into MESSIAH MODE.