The State of Israel does NOT represent Judaism · or the Jewish People.
Torah Jews
Natruna · Est. 2003
§ Rabbinical Quotations
Wisdom across generations.
From the founders of modern political Zionism in the late 19th century through the
establishment of the Zionist state in 1948 and into our own day, the overwhelming
consensus of the Torah world — across Chasidic, Litvish, Sephardi, and German-Orthodox traditions — has been one of principled, unambiguous opposition. The rabbis quoted below
spoke at different times, in different lands, and in different idioms. Their conclusions were the
same.
We present their words as they spoke them, with sources, so that readers may consult and
verify. This is a representative selection, not an exhaustive list.
i. Chasidic Leadership
The Chasidic gedolim.
Satmar Rebbe
R. Joel Teitelbaum · 1887–1979
"It is a serious danger to the Jewish people if
they point to those who do not keep the Torah
and call them the leaders of the Jewish
people. All the nations are thereby misled to
think that they speak in the name of Jewry,
and thus they are transformed into anti-
Semites."
— Kinus Haklali, 1961
The Munkacser Rebbe
R. Chaim Elazar Shapiro · 1868–1937
Pre-war leader of Hungarian Orthodoxy who
allied with the Satmar Rebbe in opposition to
both political Zionism and the
accommodationist path of Agudat Israel.
— Minchas Elazar
The Lubavitcher Rebbe (earlier
generations)
R. Sholom Dovber Schneersohn · 1860–
1920
"Even were the members of the movement
upright and faithful to Torah, even were we to
imagine that they had the power to achieve
their aim, we are not permitted to join with
them, to force the End and redeem ourselves
from exile by any physical means."
— Igros Kodesh, Or Layesharim
ii. Litvish Leadership
The Lithuanian yeshiva world.
Reb Chaim Brisker
R. Chaim Soloveitchik · 1853–1918
"The Jewish people have suffered many
plagues — the Sadducees, Karaites, Shabbesai
Zvi, Haskalah, Reform and many others. But
the strongest of them all is Zionism, because
its heresy focuses on the center of Judaism."
— Mishkenos Haro'im p. 269
The Brisker Rav
R. Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik · 1886–1959
"The Zionist state is built on a foundation that
denies the Torah. No Jew who is loyal to our
heritage can lend it legitimacy."
— Collected responsa
The Chazon Ish
R. Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz · 1878–1953
The leading halachic authority of the pre-
state Yishuv. Guided the Torah world's
principled separation from political Zionism
and insisted on its religious illegitimacy.
— Collected rulings
Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman
Rosh Yeshiva of Baranovich · 1874–1941
"The nationalist reinterpretation of Jewish
identity is a grave religious error. We are a
people because of Torah — not in spite of it,
not alongside it."
— Ikvesa D'Meshicha
iii. Jerusalem & the Old Yishuv
The Jerusalem rabbinate.
Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld
Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem · 1848–1932
Author of
Truth and Peace
— a historic publication written before the
establishment of Israel, clearly affirming that
Jews oppose subjugating Palestinians and
rejecting Zionist political claims in the name
of the Torah community of Jerusalem.
Rabbi Amram Blau
Neturei Karta · 1900–1974
"We are citizens of the Torah. We do not
recognize a Jewish state established in
defiance of the Torah and the oaths. Our
protest is an obligation, not a political
position."
— Collected writings
Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky
Av Beis Din of the Edah HaChareidis ·
1867–1948
Led the Jerusalem Torah community's formal
rejection of the Zionist enterprise, petitioning
the United Nations in 1947 that the proposed
Jewish State did not speak for religious Jewry.
— UN Memorandum, 1947
iv. German & Sephardi Tradition
From Frankfurt to Baghdad.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
1808–1889
"The Torah united all the individual Jews and
made them a nation — not because of their
past, nor because of their future, but because
they are the bearers of an eternal tradition, a
people that fulfills its covenant with Hashem."
— Horeb
Rabbi Yaakov Rosenheim
Agudat Israel founder · 1870–1965
"Jewish nationalism in the modern European
sense is a contradiction of the essence of
Jewishness. The Torah is the only legitimate
framework of Jewish peoplehood."
— Collected addresses
The Ben Ish Chai
R. Yosef Chaim of Baghdad · 1835–1909
Leading Sephardi authority of his generation.
Opposed the political Zionist program on
halachic grounds, emphasizing the Three
Oaths and the prohibition against hastening
the End.
— Responsa Rav Pealim
