The State of Israel does NOT represent Judaism · or the Jewish People.
We carry forward a voice that did not begin in 2003.
It began in Sighet in 1887 — with a child named Yoel Teitelbaum, born into a dynasty that had already, for three generations, rejected the rising winds of political Zionism.
Ten things to know, set plainly.
A Torah-based educational body.
We exist to teach — from classical sources, in plain language, without ideological manipulation.
The voice of the Satmar Rebbe.
We carry forward what Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum taught across fifty years of public life and a magnum opus in print.
Established by the Satmar community.
Founded in 2003 at the request of Satmar leadership — by Rabbi Moshe Dovid Katz, our founding director.
Endorsed by leading rabbinical authorities.
Including the Grand Rabbi of Satmar, the Central Rabbinical Congress, and the Badatz of the Eidah HaChareidis.
Funded entirely by community.
By Jewish families and readers. No government money. No political money. No foreign grants.
Not a political organization.
We do not run candidates, lobby legislatures, or endorse any political party — American, Israeli, or otherwise.
Not a protest movement.
Our work is study, publication, and press. We do not organize demonstrations.
Not Neturei Karta.
Torah Jews is not affiliated with Neturei Karta or any Neturei Karta-identified groups. Please do not conflate us.
Not antisemitic — and not a forum for it.
Our message is internal to Judaism. We reject antisemitism in every form, and we reject the conflation of anti-Zionism with it.
Not a fringe opinion.
Torah opposition to Zionism is the continuous, mainstream position of Chareidi Torah authorities from 1897 to today.
Part I · The Satmar Rebbe.
Grand Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (1887–1979) — known to his followers simply as the Rebbe, and to the world as the Satmar Rav — was the founder of the Satmar Hasidic dynasty and the most consequential opponent of political Zionism in the twentieth century. His entire life was a fight against it.
Sighet, 1887.
Born to Rabbi Chananya Yom Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, Chief Rabbi of Sighet and a leader of Hungarian Orthodoxy. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all opposed the modern Zionist project from the moment it began. The position he would later articulate in Vayoel Moshe was not invented — it was inherited, studied, and then defended with unprecedented rigor.
The young rabbi, 1911–1934.
He forbade any contact with Zionists — including the Religious Zionist party Mizrachi — and aligned with the Munkacser Rebbe against the compromise position of Agudat Israel. This was not a fringe opinion. It was the mainstream of Hungarian Orthodoxy. In 1934, after years of struggle, he took office as Chief Rabbi of Satmar (Satu Mare).
The Holocaust.
When Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, the Rebbe was caught attempting to flee to Romania and sent to the Klausenberg ghetto, then to Bergen-Belsen. He survived via the Kastner train to Switzerland. His community — his yeshiva, his Hasidim, his world — was annihilated. He lost everything a person can lose, and emerged with his position on Zionism not weakened but deepened.
“Because of our many sins, in these past years we have suffered bitterly in ways that Israel has not suffered since it became a nation.”##INLINE0##
Brooklyn, 1946.
He arrived in New York on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, 1946, aboard the Vulcania. He settled in Williamsburg with a small group of survivors and founded Congregation Yetev Lev. In 1951 he was appointed President of the anti-Zionist Eidah HaChareidis of Jerusalem. In 1955 he founded the Central Rabbinical Congress — which today still endorses this organization.
Vayoel Moshe, 1959–1961.
His magnum opus. Three treatises — on the Three Oaths, on settling the Land, on the Holy Tongue — that have been taught in yeshivas and study groups ever since. Excerpts are still distributed in synagogues worldwide every Shabbos. In 1967, he published Al HaGeulah V’Al HaTemurah, rejecting the theological claim that the Six-Day War was a sign of divine redemption.
His passing, 1979.
He passed away on the 26th of Av, 5739. Over one hundred thousand Jews attended his funeral. The town of Kiryas Joel — “Town of Yoel” — in Monroe, New York, is named for him.
“Not in our name.”
This website exists so that what the Satmar Rebbe taught for fifty years is not drowned out by those who were never authorized to speak in the name of Torah Jewry.
Guided by Torah leaders. Endorsed by the authorities of today.
The claim that Torah opposition to Zionism is a “fringe position” is itself Zionist propaganda. Here are the voices that guide this work — past and present.
Portraits shown as placeholders pending photographic approval from each authority’s office. The listing itself is authoritative: every name here is on the public record as a guide to or endorser of this work.
Part II · ##INLINE4##
In 2003, more than two decades after the Rebbe’s passing, the Satmar community asked Rabbi Moshe Dovid Katz to establish an organized body to carry the message to a world that now lived on radio, television, and eventually the internet — media the Rebbe himself had kept at a distance.
Torah Jews (Natruna) was founded for that purpose. We are not a political organization. We are not a protest movement. We are a Torah-based educational body whose only job is to make sure the world knows that the State of Israel does not speak for the Jewish people, and Zionism is not Judaism.
Torah Jews is not affiliated with Neturei Karta or any Neturei Karta-identified groups. We maintain one official X/Twitter account, @TorahJews. We are funded entirely by community members and readers — no government money, no political money.