Book overview
Rabbi Meir Kahane wrote an entire book, Time to Go Home, published in 1972, to persuade American Jews to make their homes in Israel. The book shows the reality of Jew hatred in America; the likelihood that the current social, economic, political and psychological crisis in America would set off another Holocaust; and the rise of hate groups and their motivations. Rabbi Kahane saw the danger signs in 1971: "Governments speak of huge layoffs and breadwinners are confronted with the unique prospect of unemployment.... The cities stand under massive, cross-country threat of bankruptcy.... And the sudden economic crisis is heightened by the psychological fact that for 25 years we have lived a relatively good life and have come to look upon [it] as that which is our due. ... And so, in this year of 1971, as unemployment and fear reach the highest peaks since 1938 and when ... many millions of white, blue-collar workers face bleak and painful economic futures, the Jew must once again consider what may lie before him. People who are frightened of their economic future are desperate people and desperate people are dangerous... and all their antagonism against minorities and racial groups; all their insecurities and their pent-up rage over a world they dislike and cannot understand; all these are thrown into the witches' brew from which comes forth an explosion. That explosion means the destruction of democratic civilization and the substitution of a brutal, tyrannical totalitarianism. America ... is in great danger and the Jew in the greatest of perils." Reviewer Reuben Gross wrote: "Anticipating the outcry his book is bound to stir, Rabbi Kahane points out that Jabotinsky was called a fool for crying out in the 30s 'Jews, get moving. There is no time. A fire is burning, get out.' Considerable patience is not required to read this book. Rabbi Kahane's writing combines first-rate journalistic fluency with a touch of rabbinic rhetoric and well-organized forensic persuasiveness." Time to Go Home concludes with a practical program for American aliya and ends with the words, "Home. It calls us. Let us return."
