ASSASSINATION AFTERMATH : THE RADICALS : Jewish Extremists Have Found Fertile Ground in U.S.

They call themselves Kahane Chai, or “Kahane is alive,” in honor of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the American Jewish extremist who was dedicated to expelling all Arabs from Israel and was slain in 1990. Though few in number in the United States, they constitute a vocal and visible force.

Consider the experience of Amram Mitzna, a retired Israeli army general who traveled to the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn to defend the Middle East peace process a month before Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

Three times, Mitzna tried to speak. Three times, he was interrupted by protesters shouting, “Rabin is a traitor.” Frustrated, the general stalked out.

“I am told they were Kahane Chai people,” said Rabbi Milton H. Polin, the congregation’s leader. “He [Mitzna] came out of the meeting with the idea the Jews in Brooklyn were a bunch of crazies.”

Even during a period of mourning, militant echoes of Israel’s angry debate over peace with its Arab neighbors continue to resonate in U.S. Jewish communities. They emanate from fringe groups such as Kahane Chai and Kach, another spinoff of Kahane’s followers; a kind of nether world of true believers who sanction violence to achieve their aims.

These fanatics have drawn renewed attention from U.S. authorities since Rabin’s death Saturday.

Under an executive order signed by President Clinton in January identifying both groups as terrorist organizations, Kahane Chai and Kach (which means “thus” or “this is the way”) are prohibited from raising money or doing business in the United States. Treasury officials said this week they are re-examining the groups’ activities here to determine if they have violated those prohibitions. Both groups are banned in Israel.

Mainstream Jewish leaders have emphatically denounced such groups, which tend to concentrate in New York and Los Angeles but raise money throughout the United States, and emphasize that they represent a tiny fraction of the 5.8 million Jews in the United States. But the radicals’ aggressive tactics make them an ominous presence--even for fellow Jews.

“Their numbers are small, but their impact can certainly exceed their numbers because of their zeal, because of their conviction that they’re absolutely correct in what they’re doing,” said David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, a major national Jewish organization. “They can create havoc.”

In New York alone in the months before Rabin’s killing, Israel’s ambassador to the United States had eggs thrown at him at a Queens synagogue, and Israel’s cultural minister was roughed up at a Salute to Israel parade. In addition, the life of Colette Avital, Israel’s consul general in New York, has repeatedly been threatened.

“I have been warning much of the time [that these extremist groups] should be taken more seriously,” Avital said in an interview. “Some of these organizations have been violent in their demonstrations in front of the consulate with posters of Rabin as a traitor and a Nazi. They have been very violent in the way they spoke to us.”

She said some groups set up a fund-raising telephone line in Brooklyn this week “for the poor chap who murdered the prime minister.”

The links between such extremism in the United States and Israel have long been apparent. In February, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born physician and Kach supporter, opened fire on Muslims worshiping in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, on the West Bank, killing about 30 people. Rabin called those who shared Goldstein’s ideology “a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.”

The various radical groups tend to be offshoots of the Jewish Defense League, which Kahane spearheaded for 25 years until his murder in a Manhattan hotel in 1990. His death and subsequent infighting have diminished the activity of his adherents, but various splinter factions still make themselves heard.

These include the Jewish Defense Organization, Jewish Direct Action and the Jewish Defense League itself, whose national chairman, Irv Rubin, lives in the Los Angeles area. Law enforcement officials estimate that Kahane Chai has several hundred or fewer members in the United States.

In recent years, the flash point for these organizations has tended to be opposition to negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, as well as support for Jewish settlers on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The organizations have pursued their agendas with strident rhetoric and in-your-face tactics. In a 1994 report on Kahane’s legacy, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, or the ADL, said the movement has reflected “a consistent agenda of hate, fear mongering and intimidation.”

Among the incidents cited by the ADL:

* On Jan. 5, 1994, a bomb placed outside a building in Manhattan that houses Americans for Peace Now was defused by police, and a second bomb exploded outside the building where the New Israel Fund was located. Both groups have long backed Israel trading land for security. Notes with the bombs were signed: “Shield of David” and “Maccabee Squad”--neither a recognizable group. Kahane Chai denied responsibility but refused to condemn the acts.

* On Feb. 26, 1992, a bomb exploded outside the Syrian mission to the United Nations in New York. Kahane Chai denied responsibility, but its director, Binyamin Kahane, who is Meir Kahane’s son, said in a written statement: “We hope this incident will serve as a warning and a deterrent to Syria and to Syrian-backed terrorists that the long arm of Jewish vengeance can reach them too.”

* On Oct. 11, 1985, a powerful pipe bomb exploded at the West Coast headquarters of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Santa Ana, killing its Palestinian American regional director, Alex Odeh, and injuring seven others. The previous day, Odeh had defended the Palestine Liberation Organization in a television interview.

No arrest has been made in the California case, but officials say the investigation continues. The FBI cited the Jewish Defense League, or JDL, as a possible suspect and pinpointed three of its members. One of them, Robert Manning, has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1980 mail-bomb death of a secretary at a Manhattan Beach computer company. He was extradited from Israel in 1993.

At the time, Rubin, who had taken over the leadership of the JDL when Kahane moved to Israel four months earlier, said Odeh “got exactly what he deserved.” But he denied any JDL involvement, and continues to do so.

Rubin, 50, said this week the JDL’s focus is “to combat Jew hatred here in America.” He said this included protesting appearances by Islamic fundamentalists, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Nazis and skinheads.

He sought to distance his organization from Kahane Chai and Kach. “Israeli politics are left to the Israelis,” he said. “We don’t operate as an organization in Israel.”

Although he said he felt Rabin had “betrayed the principles of Zionism” by returning land to the Arabs, he deplored the assassination. He said it is “a disaster for the right wing” in Israel because it will create sympathy for the peace process and discredit its foes.

Rubin said the JDL has taken steps to temper its confrontational reputation, including the suspension of firearms training for members. But, he added, “violence in self-defense is absolutely justifiable.”

Rubin declined to specify how many active members the JDL claims. “Across the United States, we have hundreds of people who can be counted on if there was an emergency,” he said.

Kahane Chai members in New York have now adopted a low profile--much like their counterparts in Israel--after initially appearing on television following Rabin’s assassination. But the day after Rabin was slain, members held a memorial service outside a Brooklyn synagogue to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Kahane’s murder.

Buttons were sold for $5 bearing the name of Yigal Amir, the 25-year-old law student who has confessed to gunning down Rabin at a Tel Aviv peace rally.

“Jewish hero,” the buttons said.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington and special correspondent Helaine Olen in New York contributed to this report.