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Before he settled in Palestine in 1983, Goldstein’s anti-Palestinian hate was molded by his membership in the Jewish Defense League, a zionist vigilante group founded in New York City in 1968 by Meir Kahane, who was also born and raised in Brooklyn. The JDL was notorious for carrying out multiple bombings and terrorist attacks throughout the 1970s & 80s, and most infamously the assassination of Palestinian-American community activist Alex Odeh in 1985 in Santa Ana, California.

Although the JDL was investigated and surveilled for its terrorist activities by the FBI for decades, it has remained active in recent years after rebranding as Yad Yamin and later as Herut, and collaborating with other violent zionist organizations in New York City, including Betar.

Emboldened by active protection from the NYPD and more “mainstream” entities like the Zionist Organization of America, these groups have increased their physical violence and intimidation against the Palestinian community and allies in New York City.

Recent examples of this violence include former JDL members macing pro-Palestine youth including members of WOL, Betar offering $1,800 to anyone who hands WOL’s chair and founder Nerdeen Kiswani a beeper (a reference to the occupation’s terrorist attacks in Lebanon in 2024), and JDL-adjacent Councilwoman Inna Vernikov bringing a gun to threaten high school and college students at a pro-Palestine demonstration at Brooklyn College in October 2023.

Meir Kahane & Baruch Goldstein’s Legacies Today: Palestinian Resistance In The Face Of Zionist Violence (Part 2)

The actions outlined above in part one are not isolated incidents. Inna Vernikov’s political mentor, Dov Hikind, a former New York State Assemblyman, was also formerly a member of the JDL. In 2008 he declared, “I’m proud of every single moment, let me make that very clear. Rabbi Kahane had a great influence on me.” In the 1980s, according to journalists Michael Karpin and Ina Friedman, Hikind was suspected by the FBI of “involvement in planning a string of six bombings against Arab targets in NY, Massachusetts and California—in which one man was killed and seven were injured.”

Before being elected to the New York City Council, Vernikov served as an aide to Hikind, and during her election bid in 2021 held a campaign event inviting supporters to “Meet Assemblyman Dov Hikind & His Wife Shani!” Shani Hikind, as of 2024, was the Executive Vice President of American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, a zionist organization funding illegal settlements in the West Bank and Al-Quds. Between 2020-2023, Dov and Shani Hikind contributed $2,550 to Inna Vernikov's City Council campaigns, according to public records.

In 1990 following his death, supporters of Meir Kahane lined the streets of Brooklyn during his funeral procession with israeli flags and signs that read “Death To Arabs.” Kahane’s grandson, Meir Ettinger, who carries both his name and his violent legacy, is one of the leaders of the Hilltop Youth, a zionist vigilante group in the West Bank that carried out the 2015 murder of the Dawabsheh family in the village of Duma, in which 18-month old Ali Dawabsheh and his two parents were burned to death.

The forces that molded and enabled Goldstein’s terror continue to fuel violence against Palestinians today, both in Palestine and here in New York City. And it's no coincidence that those that found inspiration in Goldstein's genocidal violence, like Itamar Ben-Gvir who had a portrait of him hanging on his living room wall for years, are the most vocal champions of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, annexation of the West Bank and push to legalize the execution of Palestinian prisoners.

In April 2025, Itamar Ben-Gvir was hosted by Chabad-Lubavitch in Crown Heights, where a violent mob his supporters of brutally attacked multiple pro-Palestine protestors. His visit, which was widely condemned, was a full circle moment for the ongoing legacy of zionist terror bred in Brooklyn - from Baruch Goldstein to the present.

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