NEW YORK – The New York Police Department investigated Kahane Chai, a militant Jewish group, for threats against Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, asked the NYPD’s intelligence division to monitor the group in the late 2000s after anti-Boteach comments were posted on Kahane.org, according to internal NYPD documents obtained by Tablet, the online Jewish magazine.“He commits incessant chilluley hashem and for that imho deserves death,” a website moderator on Kahane.org wrote in 2007, using the online name Doom777. “Someone shoot Shmuley Boteach,” the individual wrote a year later.The NYPD launched a Terrorism Enterprise Investigation into the postings, enabling it to use informants and undercover officers to monitor Kahane Chai, which the State Department designated as a terrorist group in 1994. The NYPD’s investigation appears to have focused on web postings and online forums rather than infiltration of Kahanist groups, Tablet reported.Boteach, a celebrity rabbi who wrote “Kosher Sex” and ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year from New Jersey, told Tablet that he was never informed of the threats.
