Torah Jews/Rabbinical quotations
49 Torah authorities against Zionism, on the record — search by name or filter by tradition. Each quote is kept with its source.
49 authorities
I remember fifty or sixty years ago, many gedolei yisroel said that after all the Zionists did to undermine Jewish-gentile relations, it would be a miracle if destruction did not come upon the Jews of Europe. And today we know that the accursed murderers, yimach shmam, said that Herzl's book was what aroused them against the Jews.Kinus Haklali 1961 printed in Divrei Yoel Naso p. 128-9
We have all assembled today so that the speakers can explain to the audience the position of our holy rabbis against Zionism. Although this position has already been made clear, as my uncle, he should live long, has explained it in his books, and in particular Vayoel Moshe, we must understand that in today's times, when someone is opposed to Zionism and to the state they have made, people say he is a Satmar Hassid.Speech given on the first day of Chol Hamoed Pesach 1970
Even if these men were loyal to Hashem and His Torah, and even if there were a chance that they would achieve their goal, we must not listen to them in this matter, to make our redemption with our own power.Rashi Kesubos 111a and see Midrash Shir Hashirim 2:7
The straight-thinking Jew looks on in astonishment, thinking: what do these rebels against G-d and His Torah have to do with the Land of Israel?Mishmeres Chomoseinu 20 Shvat 5716
Also the bird found a house, and the wild bird a nest for itself (Tehillim 84:4). The wild bird is a metaphor for the wicked Jews who want to be wild and free from the mitzvos. They force the end and wish to build a nest, a sovereign state, on their own, pretending that this is the ultimate redemption. But it is obvious and known that they speak falsely, and that their way is the complete antithesis of the Torah.Tehillim 84:4
It has been some time since the greatest rabbis, leaders of the fight against Zionism, have passed away. They have left our generation, unfortunately, without a window to let in the light of truth. Therefore we must strengthen ourselves, not weaken in our battle, and not sit with folded hands and laziness; but rather raise our voices constantly against all the sins of the Zionists.Ketzei Hashomayim p. 56
Satan is constantly changing his disguise and sending his agents to entrap the Jewish masses in his net, so that they throw the yoke of the Torah off their necks. The names of these agents change every few generations. Today, they are called Zionists.Kedosh Yisroel ch. 16 p. 276
After the sin of the spies, the Torah tells us that some Jews tried to invade Eretz Yisroel against the command of Hashem. Nowadays too, the Zionists went up to Eretz Yisroel with a strong hand to found colonies and fight with the gentiles. They defiantly ascended to the mountaintop, against the command of Hashem through our Sages and our forefathers, who warned that this is not the way, and said that their end would be bitter, G-d forbid.Chaim Veshalom, Parshas Shlach
Zionism itself is founded on denial of G-d's providence, reward and punishment and the coming of the redeemer. Nationalism is built only on the ruins of the holy Torah, belief in G-d, His prophets, and the Talmudic Sages. Therefore, even if the movement were led by G-d-fearing, righteous men with the best of intentions, it would be impossible for it not to destroy faith and Torah.Kuntres 22 Cheshvan p. 108
We say in the fourth blessing after meals: "He did good, He does good, He will do good to us; He bestowed upon us, He bestows upon us, He will bestow good upon us forever." Chazal, who wrote this prayer, wished to instill faith in Jewish hearts, so that they should never again trust in false messiahs or attempt to help themselves, but rather to trust in G-d's great name alone, that He would certainly fulfill His promise: "If your exiles will be on the edge of heaven, from there Hashem your G-d will gather you and take you" (Devarim 30:4)… Therefore, nowadays anyone who wants to escape the influence of all the crooked and empty movements must study the Oral Torah, and then he can be sure of his path, for the Oral Torah is the strong bridge leading to truth and justice.Introduction to Chadashim Gam Yeshanim on Chullin
The plain truth is that there is no difference between the three groups: the Zionists, the Mizrachists and the Agudists, also known as Shlumei Emunei Yisroel. The ways of all of these are abominable to religious Jews.Tikun Olam ch. 56
We have long ago been foresworn by the holy prophets not to force the end and not to enter the Land of Israel by force of arms. But these wayward sons say that with their strong arms and money they will save Israel. They say openly, G-d has forgotten us and we will save ourselves.Givas Shaul 386
We must make known and reveal that the establishment of the State of Israel and its government is against the Torah and fundamentally wrong. It is a source of poison, leading the Jewish people astray from belief in G-d… All their celebrations on Independence Day, including the Hallel prayer instituted by their rabbis and any other holiday celebrations – are all idolatry and heresy, and G-d forbid to celebrate their holiday.Letter to the Central Rabbinical Congress
The Brisker Rav once asked: Why is the wording of the last oath different from the first two? In the first two it says, "If you arouse and if you awaken," and in the last one it says, "Why do you arouse and why do you awaken?" The first two oaths are said before the Jewish people make any attempt to throw off the yoke of exile, warning them not to force the end and establish a state by human power before the coming of Moshiach. The third oath speaks to the time after the oath has already been violated: Why do you arouse? — after you have seen that violating the oath did not help you at all, why do you continue in your folly of provoking the nations and spilling Jewish blood like the gazelles and deer of the field?Uvdos Vehanhagos LeBeis Brisk, v. 4 p. 187 (related by R' Meir Soloveitchik)
The Chazon Ish said: Who keeps mitzvos in our time and is still considered a non believer (a "frumme apikoros")? Anyone who claims that it is the fault of the rabbis that 6 million Jews were murdered in Europe, and anyone who celebrates Independence Day.Reb Aharon Roter
At the Agudah convention in 1937, in reference to the Peel Commission's proposal, Rabbi Aharon Kotler rejected any suggestion for a Jewish state, even on both sides of the Jordan, even if it was established on a religious foundation, because this would be a sort of denial of the belief in the coming of moshiach. Even worse, this small state would be built on the foundation of kefirah and the name of heaven would be desecrated.Hapardes (Year 11, Issue 7)
The secularists, whose whole ideology is 'let us be like the gentiles,' use the same political methods as the gentiles, which do not apply at all to our unique situation. Therefore, even when they mean to act for our benefit, they harm us and damage us with their plans which are, for our situation, foolhardy.Ikvesa D'meshicha (Epoch of the Messiah)
Regarding what you asked about settling the Holy Land, this is only for individuals, and we must not do it as a group, as it states at the end of tractate Kesubos, that we must not go up as a wall.Letter to R' Yitzchok Sternhell, editor of Hakochav
We must follow in the footsteps of Yaakov Avinu in his encounter with his brother Esav. As the Ramban writes in Vayishlach, all that happened between Yaakov and Esav happens to us constantly with Esav's children, and we must adopt the methods of that tzaddik, to make the three preparations that he made: prayer, a gift, and escape through war, that is, to flee and take refuge. As long as we walked on that well-tread path, Hakadosh Baruch Hu saved us from their hands. But since we have strayed from the path and new leaders have arisen who chose new methods, leaving behind our ancestors' weapons and adopting the methods of our enemies, we have fared worse and worse, and great travails have befallen us. The Torah teaches us not to resist the nations even when they fight against us. If the activists of our time were wise, they would understand that they must not provoke the nations or fight wars against them. Rather they must first study the parsha of Yaakov's meeting with Esav, the Parsha of Golus, and then follow in the footsteps of our wise ancestor. Then they would succeed in improving the lot of the sheep among the seventy wolves.Chofetz Chaim Al HaTorah, Parshas Devarim and Shmini
It is unbelievable that after they themselves revealed their evil intentions, there are still religious people who join them.Ohr Layesharim
If you throw a coin into the Zionist Jewish National Fund collection box, you become a threat to the Jewish people. You bring misfortune upon the Jewish people.Moshian Shel Yisroel v. 7 pp. 128-129
If they partition the Land, providing a small area for a Jewish state, it is very doubtful if the Jewish community could spread there. All the more so since they will be surrounded by enemies, as many of the elders of the community have said, that the shadows are more than the light. And as far as our holy Torah, if it will be a government of the non-religious, who knows what the results will be? It is unnecessary to elaborate.Mikatowitz Ad Hei B'iyar p. 302
The Zionists’ purpose was not at all to benefit the Jewish people. And today we see the “great benefit” of the state: there was never so much anti-Semitism and hatred toward the Jews in the entire world as there is today. And ever since this state was founded, Jewish blood has been spilled here in rivers… But the number of casualties doesn’t bother anyone; they continue life as usual.Shiurei Rabbeinu Meshulam Dovid Halevi vol. Sichos V'inyanei Hashaah p. 662
The State of Israel solves nothing. All “problems” remain the same, and new ones are created: 1) The Arabian lands have been rendered uninhabitable for Jews; 2) constant wars with neighbors must be waged, incurring huge military expenditures and loss of many lives, in addition to constant peril; 3) it has exacerbated Jew-hatred in the nations, due to Arab influence and also to embroilment with the foreign policy of the nations; 4) and the proponents of the State of Israel attempt to kindle a fire under the Jews in all lands in order to make their position untenable so that they emigrate to augment the population of the new State.Sing You Righteous #48
It is obvious living in Eretz Yisroel is not an obligatory mitzvah in our time, for if so, it would result in a prohibition to live in outside the land because doing so would be violating a positive commandment… Now, since it is not an obligatory mitzvah, you must definitely take into consideration the concern of Rabbeinu Chaim in Tosafos as to whether you will be able to keep the special mitzvos of Eretz Yisroel.Igros Moshe Even Hoezer 1:102
Things have been happening lately concerning Jews. We have to know about this and we have to know how to look at these events. We have to look at them with a Jewish look - with a Jewish eye, and not the way the non-Jews look at such things.Sinnah
As long as the Jewish people hope the redemption will come in a natural way, that the nations of the world will have mercy on us and give us some place to build ourselves a homeland or the like, the redemption will certainly not come, for the kindness of the nations of the world is considered a sin, and in truth, we are hated by the entire world. Only if we give up on such delusions and realize that we have no one to rely upon but our Father in heaven, then moshiach will come and bring us the true redemption.Emes Leyaakov, Devarim 32:36
Sadly, even in our own circles, the mold for shaping public opinion lies in the hands of the State of Israel. An appropriate example of this dangerous process of selectively “rewriting” history may be found in the extraordinary purging from the public record of all evidence of the culpability of the forerunners of the State in the tragedy of European Jewry, and the substitution in its place of factors inconsequential to the calamity which ultimately occurred.The Jewish Observer October 1977
Rabbi Shneur Kotler said, People call the Satmar Rav's ideas a shitah, but it is not. He proves in Vayoel Moshe that this is what Shas and poskim, Rishonim and Acharonim all held. What he holds is what all gedolei Yisroel once held.Vayoel Moshe Emes, p. 47
Zionism is not at all identical with Judaism. In fact, it is diametrically opposed to it.Mitteilungen, Adar I-II 5736
When someone asked the Ponevezher Rav why he didn't prevent the Neturei Karta members from coming to protest the Zionist money at his cornerstone-layings, he answered: "If they wouldn't come on their own, I would pay them to come! I want everyone to know that what I'm doing is only bedieved — not the right way to do things, but necessary because of the difficulty of the times."Related by R' Ozer Yonah Kushner
The Arabs were a friendly people to us, and I am a witness to it. We lived very well with them in Hebron. Rabbi Avrohom Mordechai Alter, the Gerrer Rebbe, attested to this as well. It is the accursed Zionists who caused them to hate us.From a recorded interview
A lesson for all generations, that the Jewish people may not leave exile on their ownMeshech Chochmah, Vayechi
Whoever votes in the election has a portion in the defiled regime. By going out to vote, they give strength to the defiled regime, a regime of heretics whose entire goal is to leave behind the holy Torah, may G-d spare us.Ateres Yehoshua Vayikra p. 4
In the name of humanity, justice and righteousness, we appeal to you not to forsake us and not to make us subservient to an authority whose principles and practices violate all that we have been taught to hold sacred and to cherish, and whose avowed intention is to undermine our religious existence.Letter to the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine July 18 1949
By insisting on the creation of a Jewish State, the Zionists aroused the fear of our Arab neighbours in connection with further Jewish immigration.Statement to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine
We have already spoken about these nationalists. They are a recently-founded group with the purpose of fooling the people and leading the masses astray, thinking that they can settle the Holy Land by natural means and attain sovereignty over it. They are mistaken and they are swindlers, and their plan will not succeed.Liflagos Reuven Drashos Chanukah 5672 p. 331
It is unthinkable that we should seize power in our land before our healing process is complete.Mara D'ara Yisroel v. 1 p. 145
We hereby state that Ultra-Orthodox Jews have no connection or link to the provocations against the Arabs.A Serious Warning on Behalf of the Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem, March 7, 2002
We must call a meeting of rabbis to decide how to stop this movement before it is too late.Mara D'ara Yisroel v. 2 p. 43
Israel is a nation and became a nation only through and for the Torah; it possessed land and statehood only as instruments for translating the Torah into living reality. This is why Israel was a people even before it possessed land and statehood; this too is why Israel survived as a people even after its land was destroyed and its statehood lost, and this is why it will survive as a nation as long as it does not lose its only inheritance, the sole foundation of its survival and significance — the Torah. The Torah was not given for Eretz Yisroel; Eretz Yisroel was given for the Torah! ...The Torah obliges us, further, to allow our longing for the far-off 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, p. 460
There is no one greater in this generation in clarity of learning, logic, and giving decisive refutations like Rabbi Yoel… Therefore, come and let us make a festive meal to celebrate a mitzvah, a siyum on the sefer Vayoel Moshe, just as we celebrate a siyum on a Talmudic tractate, for this sefer is a great and important tractate in this confused generation.Tiferes Yoel v. 3 pp. 113-114
However the call for a Jewish state is something not all Jews agree to at this time, especially if it comes about through protests and threats, for regarding this the Holy One blessed is He already made us swear not to go up as a wall - with strength, and not to force the end, and even that they should not pray excessively.Kol Yisroel number 16 22 Teives 5706 (1946)
This is how the Zionists succeed in capturing the religious: by means of the Mizrachi, who disguise themselves as rescuers [of the Torah], when in truth it is they who are the destroyers and damagers of the path of Torah. May G-d spare us from them. (Om Ani Chomah, 22 Tamuz 5711)Om Ani Chomah 22 Tamuz 5711
I hereby make known that it is forbidden for any Jew whose forefathers stood at Mount Sinai and has a portion in the G-d of Israel and His Torah, to remain a member in the Nationalist Council, which has lifted up its hand against the Torah of Moses and desecrates the laws of the Torah brazenly.Responsa Saba Kadisha 1:32
But more than the most radical reform, Jewish truth is threatened by the movement propagated under the name of Zionism, which, if given ever greater influence would, God forbid, only serve to prolong our Galuth. Yet there are numerous Yehudim who do not shrink back from joining this movement which displays the most sinister kfiro on its banner in the hope to return the homeland under its leadership.Chokhmo U'musar volume Bamidbar-Devarim p. 39-40. Felheim Publishers Jerusalem New York 5737/1977
In the Babylonian exile they had a well-known and short time limit of seventy years, yet Yirmiyahu found it necessary to warn them so much with the word of Hashem to stay put and not take any action on their own. Now that the end is hidden and sealed, and we are forbidden under oath from taking any action, certainly we must not deviate from the words of the prophet in his letter that he sent to the exiles. I look at this movement with worry in my heart, since I see it as opposed to the Torah of Hashem and to politics… That is why I don't see in it the great quality of love of Zion.Speech, London, November 12, 1898
On Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach we read the Haftarah about the dry bones resurrected by Yechezkel the prophet. This story took place in Tishrei, so why do we read it in Nissan? Because our Sages tell us that these were the bones of the men of the tribe of Ephraim who forced the end and left Egypt before the foreordained time, and were killed by the Philistines.Yechezkel Chapter 37
Let us consider the history of other nations! First they are small and unimportant; they grow stronger and more powerful by perpetual warfare against their neighbours and other enemies; thus they become great, mighty and rich. Later on they stagnate and become the victims of other advancing nations.Commentary on the Passover Haggadah p. 72