Hundreds of members of the Land of Israel is Ours organization from around Israel gathered in Jerusalem this evening to celebrate the election of their representative, Rabbi Dr. Michael Ben-Ari to Knesset last week.
Ben-Ari was positioned number 4 on the National Union party as a compromise on behalf of Rabbi Wolpe and Baruch Marzel, who head the Land of Israel organization, and who had planed to run independently. They eventually agreed not to summit their party's list on their own, and instead placed Ben-Ari on the National Union party list.
Two of Knesset Member Ben-Ari’s invited guests to the 18th Knesset’s Opening Session were the widow and grandson of the slain Rabbi Meir Kahane. MK Ben-Ari, a student of Rabbi Kahane and co-founder of the Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea, felt that the invitation to the Kahane family was a symbolic way of closing the circle in light of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s assasination. When there was a media leakage regarding the Kahane family’s arrival, the family – who are “media-shy,” declined to arrive.