Jewish blood is not cheap. Never Again is not a slogan. It is Torah.

Judaism does not teach you to turn the other cheek. That is another religion. The Torah does not command suicide. The Torah does not command Jews to wait politely while they are murdered and then write a beautiful eulogy. The Torah commands life. The Torah commands you to rise first. The Torah commands you not to stand on your brother’s blood.

The Sixth Commandment is lo tirtzach — do not murder. It is not “do not kill.” The man who comes to slaughter a Jew has no claim on Jewish mercy. The Jew who refuses to fight him is not righteous. He is in violation of the Torah.

This is not “extremism.” This is Sanhedrin 72a. This is Exodus. This is the Rambam. This is the Maccabees. This is Nehemiah building the wall with a sword in one hand. This is Rabbi Meir Kahane tearing the galut out of the Jewish spine and putting Barzel back where it belongs.

JDL 613 Brotherhood exists because the establishment spent decades sanding the edges off this halakhah until “Never Again” became a museum caption. We will not live that way.

הבא להורגך השכם להורגו

Habah l’hargecha, hashkem l’horgo.

If someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.

— Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a

That is the whole program. Everything below is commentary.

The Five Principles — Torah in the Fist

Rabbi Kahane did not invent Jewish values. He restored them.

- Ahavat Yisrael — One people. If they bleed, you bleed. If they are hunted, you hunt the hunter. A Jew who abandons another Jew has already chosen the enemy.

- Hadar — Walk upright. Stop apologizing for surviving. A bent Jew invites the boot.

- Barzel — Train. Fight. Guard the shul, the school, the street. A mitzvah you cannot physically perform is a lie you tell yourself.

- Mishmaat — One fist, not a thousand arguments.

- Bitachon — Faith is not sitting still. Faith is stepping forward when Jewish survival is on the line.

1. Rise First — The Law of the Jewish Doorway

Sanhedrin 72a

הבא להורגך השכם להורגו

If one comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.

Also Berakhot 58a and Yoma 85b. Hashkem does not mean “after he has finished with your children.” It means get up early. See it coming. Hit first.

Shemot / Exodus 22:1–2

If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there is no bloodguilt for him. If the sun has risen on him, there is bloodguilt for him.

The Sages: “sun” is not a clock. “Sun” is certainty.

If it is as clear to you as the sun that he does not come in peace — that he comes to kill you — arise and kill him first.

— Sanhedrin 72a

A man who tunnels into a Jewish house at night comes ready to kill. The Torah does not require the Jew to wait for the knife so the newspapers can call him moderate. If it is as clear as daylight that there is no threat to life, killing him is murder. The Torah is not blood-drunk. The Torah is not stupid either. Doubt goes to the Jew who is still breathing.

Bamidbar Rabbah 21:4

“Harass the Midianites… because they harass you.” Hence the Sages said: If someone comes to kill you, act first to kill him.

What is true of the doorway is true of the people. A nation that hunts Jews is a rodef with a flag.

2. Do Not Stand on Jewish Blood

Leviticus 19:16

לא תעמוד על דם רעך

You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.

The Jew who watches another Jew go down and does nothing has blood on his hands.

Sanhedrin 73a

If you see someone drowning, mauled by beasts, or attacked by robbers, you are obligated to save him. Western law gives you a “right” you may waive. Torah gives you a duty.

Rambam, Hilchot Rotzeach 1:6–14

If you can save him and you do not, you have violated Leviticus 19:16.

- Positive mitzvah: save the pursued, even by taking the pursuer’s life.

- Negative mitzvah: do not pity the pursuer. Lo tachos einecha — Deuteronomy 25:12.

The Torah does not tell you to feel conflicted. The Torah tells you not to have pity on the one trying to kill a Jew.

Every Jew is commanded to save the pursued — even if the pursuer is a minor. Limb if a limb will stop him. Death if only death will stop him, even before the murder is finished. Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 425:1. A man pursuing a Jew to rape is a rodef. You do not negotiate. You stop him.

Sanhedrin 37a

Whoever destroys a single Jewish soul, it is as if he destroyed an entire world. Whoever saves a single Jewish soul, it is as if he saved an entire world.

“Restraint” that leaves Jews dead is not morality. It is a world burned down for the sake of looking respectable.

3. Live by Them — Not Die by Them

Leviticus 18:5

…and live by them.

Not die by them (Yoma 82a–85b). Shabbat yields. Fasting yields. The life of a Jew does not. Deuteronomy 4:9 and 4:15: guard yourselves. Survival is mitzvah.

One hard line: you may not murder an innocent to save yourself (*Pesachim* 25b). Defense is against the one who comes to kill. That is the difference between a Jew with a weapon and a murderer.

4. When They Come for the People — Fight, Even on Shabbat

Eruvin 45a

Money only — do not break Shabbat. Lives — go out with weapons and break Shabbat. Frontier town — go out even for straw, because the frontier is the throat of the people.

Rambam, Hilchot Shabbat 2:23 / Shulchan Aruch O.C. 329:6–7

Siege, battle lines, intent to kill: weapons on Shabbat. The Rema: even if they only plan to come. The Jew who forbids training on a Tuesday is not more frum than the Rambam. He is afraid.

Rambam, Hilchot Melachim 5:1

Which is a commanded war? … to help Israel against an enemy who attacks them.

Milchemet mitzvah. Not optional. Not a press conference.

History

- I Maccabees 2:32–41 — the Greeks slaughtered Jews on Shabbat because Jews would not fight. Mattathias answered: we fight rather than be erased.

- Nehemiah 4:11–17 — one hand on the stone, one hand on the weapon. A rifle near a shul is not a chillul Hashem. It is how the wall went up.

- Numbers 25:17–18 — strike those who strike you.

- Deuteronomy 20; 25:17–19 — war; remember Amalek. A generation that cannot say the word will spend the next one digging graves.

5. Mercy to the Cruel Is Cruelty to Jews

He who is merciful to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful. Pity for the terrorist. A moment of silence for the Jewish dead. That is not Torah.

Kahane said it without stammering: Jewish blood is not cheap, and it is forbidden to cheapen it.

6. Rabbi Meir Kahane — The Torah After Auschwitz

He did not add a verse. He ripped the galut out of Jews who had memorized the verse and forgotten the obligation. In 1968 he built the JDL so the next hunted Jew would be answered by Jews — not by a guest hoping the police arrived in time. He made Never Again a program, not a plaque.

Never Again does not mean the enemy will never rise. Esav hates Yaakov. Never Again means: if they rise, they will not find sheep.

Jewish Press, October 27, 1972

The Jewish lamb, the Jew who stands bent and trembling passively before his mocking enemies who mock and degrade him, is the Jew who is ultimately destined for pogroms, extermination and holocaust. Jewish blood is not cheap and it is forbidden to cheapen the Jews — either as a people or individually… This is the real meaning of the slogan — Never Again. Not that never again will we see the rise of Nazis or other enemies. Such a thing is not possible… for Esav will always hate Yaakov. But it is with a mighty oath that in the event of such enemies — never again will there be a passive, timid and humiliating reaction such as in generations past. The honor of the Jewish people will never again be trampled.

That paragraph is the constitution of this Brotherhood.

His Talmud

- “If one comes to slay you, slay him first.”

- USA Today, Feb. 12, 1987: “One doesn’t deal with terrorists. One doesn’t bargain with terrorists. One kills terrorists.”

- “That may not be Gandhi — but Gandhi wasn’t a Jew, and I am a Jew, and that is Judaism.”

- Violence in the wrong place is a horror. Violence to save Jewish life is a mitzvah.

Barzel — Every Jew a .22

He wanted every Jew an M-16. It didn’t rhyme. From Never Again!: boxing, karate, judo, lawful firearms. There has never been a pogrom because a Jew knew how to punch. There have been a thousand because Jews were taught that punching was “not who we are.”

Who we are is David. Who we are is the Maccabee. Who we are is Kahane in a Brooklyn basement telling boys the truth their rabbis were too housebroken to say.

Havlagah is a Jewish grave

1936: self-restraint. They murdered. We buried. “Better” — and six feet under. Deterrence is why your grandchildren exist. The nations that would not bomb the rails to Auschwitz do not get a veto over Jewish self-defense.

One people

Soviet Jews were not someone else’s problem. The old Jew on a changing block was not an embarrassment. Israeli blood and American blood are not different currencies. Ahavat Yisrael that stops at a zip code is assimilation in a kippah.

From Never Again!

We saw piles of corpses… whose blood was spilled like water because Jewish blood is valued very cheaply… And we heard their voices: “Never again! This must never happen again! Promise us!” We must fulfill their demand.

We are still writing it. With training. With patrols. With Torah in the mouth and a fist on the table.

7. The Law, Without the Apology

1. If they come to kill you, rise first.

2. If they come to kill a Jew, you are commanded to stop them.

3. Do not pity the pursuer.

4. The community fights even on Shabbat when they come for lives.

5. War to defend Israel against those who attack her is a mitzvah.

6. Jewish blood is not cheap.

7. Barzel is part of the mitzvah: train, secure the shul, build the patrol, hold a lawful firearm where the law permits it.

8. Defense is not murder. Limb if a limb stops him. Death if only death stops him. We do not hunt innocents to make a point. We do not leave Jews undefended to make a point either.

Rabbi Kahane was hated because he would not translate this into language that comforted the guilty. Good. The Torah was not given to comfort the guilty. It was given so that Israel would live.

That is the Torah of self-defense. That is Kahanism. That is why JDL 613 Brotherhood stands.

Train. Organize. Guard your people.

The Jewish fist rises.

Never Again.

Torah and Self-Defense