Time & Perspective Quote by Meir Kahane

Revenge, in Kahane's hands, isn’t a lapse in morality; it’s a claim to moral jurisdiction. The line is engineered to flip the usual hierarchy where restraint is virtue and vengeance is vice. By calling revenge a "trait", he naturalizes it as character rather than choice, then launders its brutality through procedure: "right time and place". That qualifier is doing most of the political work. It suggests discipline, proportionality, even legalism, while leaving the decision of what counts as "right" in the hands of the speaker and his community. The result is a portable ethical waiver: violence is not only permissible, it can be the most "justified" expression of identity.

Kahane’s broader context makes the intent clearer. As a hardline Jewish nationalist rabbi and founder of the Jewish Defense League and Kach, he operated in an era shaped by the aftershocks of the Holocaust, recurrent wars, and terror, when Jewish vulnerability and Jewish power were in constant, combustible conversation. His rhetoric frequently framed Jews as perpetually on trial, with survival requiring unapologetic force. In that frame, revenge becomes a pedagogical tool: it teaches enemies fear and teaches the in-group pride. It also immunizes the movement against critique. Opponents aren’t debating policy; they’re trying to deny a wounded people their "justified" response.

The subtext is less about grief than about sovereignty. "Revenge" is presented as the emotional proof that a community has stopped begging for protection and started dispensing consequences. It’s a sentence built to make retaliation feel like self-respect, and to make hesitation feel like betrayal.