Judaism:     An Alternative to Zionism

Speech by Rabbi David Weiss

 

Neturei Karta speech presented by Rabbi David Weiss, at an International seminar on issues of Islamophobia, hosted by the Islamic Human Rights Commission. Delivered at the NGO Forum of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa on August 29, 2001.

With God's help, by the grace and kindness of God, the Almighty - My dear
guests and delegates, may the Creator's blessings be upon this assembly and may
His wisdom inform all its actions.

 Judaism - an Alternative to Zionism

Abraham, the mutual forefather of the Jewish people and their Arabic cousins,
is described by Efron in the Bible as "a prince of the Lord in our
midst.(Genesis 23:5)" Since man does not live in isolation, one of the goals of
the true religious personality is to achieve a degree of devotion capable of
evoking the praise of all men and their desire to emulate his piety.

            From Abraham's days this was the sole agenda of the Jewish people.
The revelation at Mt. Sinai placed an enormous burden upon our people. We were
summoned to be "a kingdom of priests and a Holy nation. (Exodus 19:6)"

                Down through the ages Jews lived a humble, holy existence, at peace
with all men and served as loyal and co-operative citizens in the nations
amongst whom they dwelled.

            One hundred years ago, a Jew, far removed from his faith and in
total ignorance of its basic beliefs, launched the movement today known as
Zionism. Its early adherents were almost uniformly drawn from the ranks of Jews
who had previously abandoned their faith.

            Time does not permit us to catalogue in detail the evil effects of
this ideology upon Jews themselves and how it led them to abandon the beliefs
and practices of the Torah.  Rather for the purposes of this conference we
will, God willing, explain why Zionism is a rejection of Judaism and how its
demise is the only path to true peace.

            All mankind stands aghast at the terrible suffering in the Middle
East . Innocents on both sides are swept up in a spiral of seemingly never
ending bloodshed. The world searches for a solution.

            Our perspective is representative of the Torah view, maintained by
hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide, which offers a real alternative to the
current impasse.

            Our position is that of the Talmud and Midrash which explicitly
prohibit premature attempts to end exile. Indeed, we are told that it is
metaphysically impossible for there to be a real cessation of hostilities so
long as the Jewish people are in violation of the terms of their exile.



            With this introduction complete let us now turn to the details of
the dilemma now before us.

            What is the traditional Torah belief concerning the Holy land?

The Holy Land was a conditional Divine gift. It was a place set aside for
God's worship. But it was given conditionally. The Bible foretold that if the
"children of Israel " should fail in their spiritual task, they would be
banished from the land and sent into exile. This exilic punishment will last
until the Lord in His mercy, sees fit to end history as we know it, by
ushering in the Messianic era - a time of universal brotherhood and peace. This
utopian future will feature the worship of God by all mankind, centred in the
Holy Land and the city of Jerusalem.

            In the Additional Service recited on every major Jewish holiday we
find the following prayer, "And because of our sins we were exiled from our
land and removed from our soil and we cannot now go up and appear and prostrate
ourselves before You."

These prayers represented nothing new in the way of doctrine to those who
instituted and recited them. From the time of the Temple 's destruction and
throughout Jewish history our people always regarded their exile as a Divine
punishment. Indeed, no Jews ever dared suggest in the thousands of years of our
exile that the Romans had destroyed the Temple due to a lack of Jewish military
preparedness or resources. Rather, the Temple was lost physically because of
the Jewish people's failure to live up to their spiritual obligations to God.

            Indeed, despite thousands of years in exile, frequent exclusion and
persecution, no Jew ever suggested that the Holy Land could or should be
retaken by force of arms. Exile was, indeed, a physical state. Yet, it was
completely caused and perpetuated by spiritual forces. Thus, the only means to
end exile and usher in the promised era of peace and worldwide brotherhood
were and are spiritual. They consist of the essential practices of our faith --
 repentance, prayer, Torah study and good works.

   In the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (German Jewish leader 1808 -
1888), "During the reign of Hadrian when the uprising led by Bar Kochba proved
a disastrous error, it became essential that the Jewish people be reminded for
all times of an important, essential fact, namely that (the people of) Israel
must never again attempt to restore its national independence by its own power;
it was to entrust its future as a nation solely to Divine Providence." (Hirsch
Siddur, 1969: 703)

Again Rabbi Hirsch writes, "We mourn over that which brought about that
destruction (of the Temple), we take to heart the harshness we have encountered
in our years of wandering as the chastisement of a father, imposed on us for
our improvement, and we mourn the lack of observance of Torah which that ruin
has brought about. . . This destruction obliges us to allow our longing for the
far away land to express itself only in mourning, in wishing and hoping; and
only through the honest fulfillment of all Jewish duties to await the
realization of this hope. But it forbids us to strive for the reunion or­­
possession of the land by any but spiritual means." (Horeb, 1981: 461)

The attempt to explain the exile in this-worldly terms is not simply an error
of doctrine or a distortion of Jewish history. It strikes at the core of Jewish
belief. In fact, the Maharal of Prague (Czechoslovakian Rabbi and pivotal
medieval Jewish leader, 1525 - 1609) writes that a Jew should rather give up
his life than attempt to end exile by conquering the Holy Land . (Netzach
Yisroel, 24)

            Why? Why was this seen as so basic to our belief system?

            In simple terms -- if one views the exile as the result of military
cause and effect, then the very heart and soul is ripped out of Jewish destiny
and Divine guidance. By asserting our right to alter the Divine plan of exile
as punishment, repentance, expiation and miraculous return, we assert that the
essence of Jewish destiny is fundamentally capable of being altered by other
than spiritual forces. God is then exiled from the drama and final resolution
of mankind's hopes.

Of course, exile is far more than mere punishment. The Jewish people were sent
amongst the nations in order to proclaim by word and deed the truths of God's
existence and His revelatory injunctions for all men.

            In the words of Rabbeinu Bachya (12th century Saragossian Biblical
commentator) "The Jewish people should spread among the nations in order that
those nations should learn from them belief in the existence of God and the
flow of Divine Providence regarding the particulars of men."

            Tragically, two events coalesced to cloud over the above, once
universally recognized truths among the Jewish people. First, the exile dragged
on for hundreds and eventually thousands of years. Second, in the aftermath of
the Enlightenment, many Jews abandoned Torah faith. Thus, those Jews who no
longer saw exile in Divine terms sought to explain it as nothing more than the
result of this worldly powerlessness.

            In their frustration at the length of the exile they demonised all
nations. In their view all Gentiles would forever hate the Jewish people.
Therefore, they reasoned, we must immediately end exile by political and, if
need be, military means. Thus, was born the pseudo religion of Zionism.

This necessitated ignoring the Palestinian inhabitants of the land. When this
strategy became impossible, the Zionist movement and later the Israeli state
sought to depict them as unreasonable enemies for whom military conquest was
the only just fate.

            Accordingly, both exilic missions (repentance and serving as a
"light unto the nations") were damaged by the ideology of Zionism.


We are called upon by Zionism to view all Arab nations as our enemies. We are
forever exhorted to dwell on anti - Semitism, real and imagined, in order to
justify the creation of the state and its subsequent aggressions. This
obsession with wars, terror and counter terror, the subjugation of the
Palestinians, reparations and claims upon all nations and ever wilder charges
of anti - Semitism provide an inviting substitute for many Jews. This heresy
was particularly tempting to Jews ignorant of Torah and due to historical and
cultural forces,  estranged from their faith.

            The costs of all this in terms of our true exilic tasks are
staggering. In place of fulfilling our quiet role of being a "light unto the
nations", we are forever dragged into a bloody conflict with the Palestinian
people. Thousands of innocents on both sides continually suffer. Jewry
worldwide has little time or patience for its primary task -- the worship of
God and its derivative benefit -- the sanctification of His Name.

            There is no need for Jews to be seen as the enemies of the Islamic
world. There is no need for Jews to be forever accusing Popes and governments
of having insufficiently apologized to us for past wrongs - real and imagined.
There is no need for Jewry to base its collective political strategies in
America and Europe on a "Is it good for Israel?" basis, thus alienating and
angering their fellow citizens.

            Beyond these factors, there remains the tragic fact that much of
mankind sees the Israeli state as representative of the Jewish people. Thus,
the state that has rejected or, at best, ignored God, conveys the message to
humanity that the essence of Jewish ness is a secular nationalism.

Further, the claim of Israel to represent world Jewry links all of our people
to the state's acts of violence against the Palestinian people. This is a
frustrating and embarrassing lie. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many
Jews in the Holy Land and around the world are greatly pained and anguished by
the suffering and persecution of the Palestinian people. Of course, our hearts
bleed whenever innocent Jews suffer. But, this need not blind a moral people to
the similar sufferings of the other. This is precisely the point-Zionism is a
recipe for endless suffering among both Jews and Palestinians.

In the words of Grand Rabbi, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum zt'l (of blessed memory,
originally of Hungary, who lived in New York after WW II, 1888 - 1980),  "In
sum, the hatred against the Jewish community is because it is said that those
who are not Torah observant, who are heretics, are the leaders of Jewry. The
nations of the world are misled by them and acquire a hatred of Jews. One of
the greatest commandments there is, to be observed with utmost self-sacrifice,
would be to make known to the nations of the world that they (Zionists and
irreligious leaders) are not the representatives of the Jewish community. (And
to tell them) that observant Jews have no connection with them." (Dibros
Kodesh, 1986: 210-11)

The vast majority of Jews rejected Zionism when it first began. In the early
part of the century, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem (not to be confused with the
Chief Rabbis of the State of Israel), Rabbi Yoseph Chaim Zonnenfeld negotiated
with King Hussein in order to help the Orthodox Jewish community escape the
Zionist machinations. This resulted in the assassination by Haganah operatives
in 1924 of the Rabbi's advisor, Dr. Jacob Israel de Haan. In 1948 Rabbi Yosef
Zvi Duchinsky of Jerusalem sent an urgent petition to the United Nations,
asking that the Orthodox community in the Holy Land be exempted from Zionist
rule. These were not isolated incidents. For over a century Zionism has been
opposed by large segments of Orthodox Jewry in Jerusalem, the Holy Land and
around the world. Many continue to do so today. In fact, they refuse any form
of recognition of, or co-operation with the state. They frequently pay for
their opposition to the state by being arrested, beaten and, at times,
murdered. Their voices are generally ignored in the Israeli press and
throughout the world.

Zionist assertions having solved the "Jewish question" by "ending exile" have
proven a dismal failure. If anything, the Zionist's claim to having created a
safe haven for Jewry is patently false. The truth is that Israel today,
whether governed by "doves" or "hawks" is the most dangerous place in the world
for Jews.  Such was to be expected, as Israel's very creation was an act of
defiance against the Creator's guidelines.

 Our position is the only one offering a real alternative to the status quo.
Anti - Zionist Jews believe that the one path to peace in the Middle East, the
only means for Jews to fulfil their proper role in exile and the only path
demonstrating justice and kindness towards the Palestinians, is the total
dismantling of the Israeli state. Only then, with sovereignty transferred to
Palestinian rule, will a true peace be attained.

            After 53 years of having our blood shed on the altar of a
nineteenth century colonial, nationalism, misapplied to the Jewish people,
having spilled rivers of blood of other peoples, it is high time that world
Jewry subject the first assumptions of Zionism to criticism.

            What has been accomplished by linking our people's fate to that of
the state?


            At root, Zionism has succeeded in changing the definition of Jewry
from that of a people of faith, intent on achieving closeness to the Creator in
this world, to that of a barren secular, ethnic identity. It has exacerbated
anti Jewish sentiments around the world.

            It behoves those Torah Jews who have known, since Zionism's
inception, that only ill could come of its dreams, to urge world Jewry to
accept the only suitable alternative.

            This alternative would not demand Jewish political rule over the
Temple Mount or Jerusalem. The "non negotiability of Jerusalem" is not a Torah
concept. Indeed, the true Torah concept is to relinquish the notions of Zionism
and abandon, in a peaceful fashion, the current Zionist sovereignty over the
land.

            This need not sadden any Jew. It is far better to relinquish
political power than fail in our religious/moral task as the Torah nation. It
is far better to practice kindness and fairness to all men as dictated by the
Torah, than it is to be drawn into a never ending battle with the Palestinians,
the Islamic world, the entire Third World and increasingly the nations and
peoples of Europe and North America. We Jews have a task, but it is not to be
dispossessors or aggressors.

   The serious alternative to Zionism is the faith of Judaism. In Rev Hirsch's
powerful description:

 "Picture every son of Israel a respectful and influential priest of
righteousness and love, disseminating among the nations not specific Judaism -
for proselytism is forbidden - but pure humanity. .. . .How impressive, how
sublime it would have been if there lived a people . . .. . who beheld in
material possessions only the means for practicing justice and love towards
all, a people whose minds imbued with the wisdom and truth of the Law,
maintained simple, straightforward views, and emphasized them for themselves
and others in expressive, vivid symbolic acts." (Nineteen Letters, 1960:108-9)

To the Palestinian people and the other peoples here represented: You have no
quarrel with the Jewish people. We are not your enemies. Our message is simple.
Let us endeavor to live in peace and true mutual respect.

To our fellow Jews we ask that you all embrace the faith of ancestors as
revealed on Sinai; that you deal justly and kindly with all men and that we all
work towards the day of ultimate brotherhood and redemption for mankind.

Our prayer to God is that the Israeli state be speedily and peacefully
dismantled without any further shedding of Jewish or Palestinian blood and that
we be worthy of seeing the full revelation of God's glory in the world. Amen

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Jews United Against Zionism
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