Are Religious Jews Zionists?

by Eric on February 8, 2008

Are Religious Jews Zionists? That is an often heated and difficult question. Like any question posed to a Rabbi, it has many answers.

First off, there are several types of religious Jews. To easily simplify traditional religious Judaism for the purposes of this blog, there are Haredi Jews, both Chasid and Litvak, and Modern-Orthodox Jews.

Haredi Jews, or Jews who live a complete, traditional Jewish lifestyle, are a mixed bag of Zionists, anti-Zionists, and in betweenists.

Chasidim follow the teachings of their Rebbe, or head Rabbi. Each Chasid group has a different philosophy on Zionism. On one extreme are Satmar or Netori Karta. These groups are famous for anti-Israel protests. The infamous Rabbis who attended the Iranian Holocaust Denial Conference belong to the Netori Karta Chasidim. They are known to support terrorist groups who oppose Israel. The Satmar are vocally anti-Israel, yet are not actively known to support violent anti-Israel groups.

On the other end of the Chasid spectrum are groups like Chabad. Chabad supports Israel to the point that it sponsors Birthright trips for young Jews to visit Israel for free, though a relationship with Mayanot. Campus Chabad groups often do Israel advocacy work at their schools.

In the middle of Chasids are groups like Shomer Emunim, a small group based in Meah Sharim in Jerusalem. Their Rebbe teaches that the Jewish did not come to control Israel in the best halachic, meaning by Jewish Law, manor. However, we should keep what we have.

Litvuk Jews are generally somewhere in the middle as well. Not fully supporting the State of Israel, but supporting a Jewish homeland.
Why do some Jews not support Israel? This is a question plaguing many non-observant Jews around the world. The reason is in Jewish Law. Jewish tradition states that Israel will be reborn with the coming of Moshiach, or the Messiah. Until then, these Jews say that the State of Israel is breaking Jewish Law.


Modern Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, generally support Israel fully. These Jews, also referred to as Religious Zionists, generally support the expansion of Jewish town in the West Bank and support Jewish settlers. These Jews are often associated with the HaIchud HaLeumi political party in Israel.

About the author

Eric Eric is the founder and editor of IsraelSituation.com. He has been to Israel many times including a semester at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the former president of the Israel advocacy group at the University of Colorado and teaches about Israel and the Media at a local religious school.

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  • rofalk

    Somewhat inaccurate. Neturei Karta are not a chassidic group, although they dress in the same way. It is more of a (rather distorted) philosophy, made up of individuals from a variety of Chassidic camps and also from the non-chassidic “old Yishuv.”
    The Shomrei Emunim chasidim of Meah Shearim, closely linked with Toldos Aharon and Toldos Avrum Yitzchak, are in fact not middle of the road, but on the most extreme fringe of anti-Zionism. They refuse to take any money from the state, or to deal with it in any way. They are often at the forefront of violent demonstrations against Zionism and the “modesty patrol” of Meah Shearim is dominated by these groups. They speak Yiddish rather than Hebrew and are quite insular, even within the Chassidic world.

  • Eric

    My good friend, a member of Shemer Emunim, told me quite the opposite. He said that they do not support the state, but that their Rebbe went as far as putting an orange sticker on his car to support the Gaza Settlers.

    Thanks for reading and commenting.

  • Ben-Yehudah

    B”H

    I think the “hallachic” concept you may be referring to is based on something which nothing more than agaditah.

    Rabbi Yo’el meSatmar emphasized the “shalosh shavu’oth” mentioned in the gemara (Ketubboth), one of which is not entering the land en masse.

    This is of course aggaditah, which does not determine halacha, but can support ones position or POV.

    (I’m sure I will get it for daring to challenge the great Yo’el of Satmar, who certainly was a hacham and ba’al hesed.)

    Historically, the Hungarians were also more anti-Zionist, associating zionism with secular Judaism, and needing to insulate and protect their communities. This was not the case in Poland, where there was less of a resistance.

    The book by Hungarin Rabbi Teichtel HY”D Em HaBanim Smeicha clears up a lot of this anti-Zionist arguments. Needless to say, there was much resistance to publishing this book in Israel.

    Rabbi Kahane HY”D teaches us that the “three oaths” were made in regards to goyim which have since broken their parts of the bargain, thus make any contracts which may have existed, null and void, assuming these were even binding anyway.

    I believe these aggaditah are here to teach us something else.

    BTW, there really are two religious ZIonist camps, not one: 1) The Toranim (Torah before state when there’s a conflict) and 2) Mamlakhtim (refusing to believe there’s a conflict between state and Torah)

  • kahaneloyalist

    Religious anti-Zionism is actually a relatively modern philosphy, it really began following the militant secularism of certain Zionist factions. You will find that the vast majority of Poskim before Achad Haam, who led the militant secularists, paskened according to the Ramban Sefer HaMitzvot Mitzvah #4, which commands the Jewish people to conquer Eretz Yisrael in every generation as in Yehoshua’s time. After Achad Haam obscure rulings were revived, and opinions which were pro-Zionist from a religious perspective were written out altogether Gedolim Redux some Charedi web sites have gone so far as to censor the Rambam’s letter to the Chachamim of Marseille where the Rambam says the reason we are still in exile is we havent learned warfare to reconquer our land all this in order to create the impression that religious anti-Zionism was the norm and and Zionism isnt compatible with normative Judaism.

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