- "Zionism is the greatest form of spiritual
impurity They have polluted the Jewish people with their heresy."
-Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum
-
- The words of the saintly Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, author
of the VAYOEL MOSHE (in Hebrew, written in 1958) ring clearly when we view
events in the Middle East:
-
- "...if we place all the immodesty and promiscuity
of the generation and the many sins of the world on one side of the scale,
and the Zionist state on the other side of the scale by itself, it would
outweigh them all.
-
- "Zionism is the greatest form of spiritual impurity
in the entire world."
-
- "They are polluting the entire world. They
have polluted the Jewish people with their heresy, Heaven help us."
-
- "It is no surprise why G-d's anger comes down from
heaven. It is necessary to repent and escape from them more than from a
lion who is chasing a person to kill him."
-
- "It has been explained that before the coming of
the Messiah, this regime will come to an end, as Messiah cannot come any
other way, since the Zionist state holds up the redemption of the world."
-
- "We need G-d's mercies that divine intervention
should bring about the end of the state. May G-d have mercy on us all."
-
-
- RABBI TEITELBAUM ALSO WROTE
-
- "It is clear that anyone who believes in G-d has
no doubt that they are from the source of the accursed impurity of heresy,
Heaven help us.
-
- It is horrible that such a thing arose in our day, and
how can we be silent when we see such violations of our faith and the principles
of our entire Torah?
-
- Especially since so many of our religious brethren -
fail to speak out about the truth! In such circumstances, the entire truth
could be forgotten, G-d forbid."
-
- "Everything our blessed rabbis cried out about earlier
in the century about the dangers of Zionism has almost been forgotten!
Even my own writings go ignored. THEREFORE, SHOULD THE TRUTH AND FOUNDATIONS
OF OUR RELIGION BE FORGOTTEN?
-
- It is impossible to describe to what extent the world
has become sunken in such a falsehood which is destroying the entire Torah.
Therefore we are obliged to cry out before anyone against the deep impurity
which has spread out in our generation.
-
- Let us hope there are increasing numbers who open up
their eyes and the teachings of our forefathers should reach their ears
to seek truth and faith.
-
- Without this, there is no hope...."
-
-
- All 27 Links Are Here:
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/nk.html
-
-
- Neturei Karta
-
- Neturei Karta (Aramaic: "Guardians of the City")
is a group of Orthodox Jews which rejects Zionism and the establishment
of the State of Israel.
-
- They believe that the true Israel can only be reestablished
with the coming of the Messiah. They number some 5,000 and are concentrated
in Jerusalem. Other, larger groups associated with Neturei Karta but not
members of the group, can be found in Israel, London, New York City, and
upstate New York state.
-
- For the most part, the members of Neturei Karta are descended
from Hungarian Jews that settled in Jerusalem's Old City in the early nineteenth
century.
-
- They were tradesmen and craftsmen, who devoted most of
their time to studying the Talmud and other sacred texts. Most of their
livelihood was based on the halukah, or distribution of charitable donations
from wealthy Jews in the Diaspora.
-
- In the late nineteenth century, they participated in
the creation of new neighborhoods outside the city walls to alleviate overcrowding
in the Old City, and most are now concentrated in the neighborhood of Batei
Ungarin and the larger Meah Shearim neighborhood.
-
- At the time, they were vocal opponents to the new political
ideology of Zionism that was attempting to assert Jewish sovereignty in
Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
-
- They resented the new arrivals, who were predominantly
secular, and claimed that Jewish redemption could only be brought about
by the Messiah. Among the proofs they brought for this argument was a talmudic
Midrash (legend) that God, the Jewish People, and the nations of the world
made a divine pact, when the Jews were sent into exile by the Roman Empire.
-
- One provision of the pact was that the - Jews would not
rebel against the non-Jewish world that gave them sanctuary;
-
- a Second was that they would - Not immigrate en masse
to the Land of Israel. In return, the legend states, the Gentile nations
promised not persecute the Jews too harshly.
-
- By rebelling against this pact, they argued, the Jewish
People were engaging in open rebellion against God.
-
- In fact, this position was adopted by the bulk of the
Orthodox world (with the exception of a small faction of Orthodox Zionists,
led by Chief Rabbi Abraham Kook and his followers) well up until the United
Nations voted to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947.
-
- Representatives of another Orthodox party, Agudat Israel,
actually asked the General Assembly to vote against partition. Tensions
were at their highest between the Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish communities
in Palestine in the 1920s, following the assassination of Jakob de Haan,
a Dutch poet, former Zionist, and spokesman for Agudat Israel http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/gloss.html
against the creation of a Jewish State.
-
- Nevertheless, Agudat Israel reevaluated its position
upon the establishment of Israel and has been a participant in most governments
since that time (though it still will not accept a ministerial portfolio
as a result).
-
- This switch of allegiance by Agudat Israel caused a radical
shift in the ideology of Neturei Karta, which felt betrayed by their Orthodox
Allies.
-
- Their attacks against Israel and Zionism became all the
more extreme, especially under the leadership of Rabbi Amram Blau and his
wife, a convert and former member of the French Resistance, who had rescued
Blau during the Holocaust.
-
- The community became more insular, while forming alliances
with other sects that rejected the pragmatic support given by Agudat Israel
to Israel's secular government after independence.
-
- Among their allies were the large and affluent Hasidic
group Satmar, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/hasidim_&_mitnagdim.html
under the leadership of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, formerly of Hungary and
later of New York City, as well as other hassidic groups, some in Israel
and others in the Diaspora.
-
- With their help, Neturei Karta was able to withstand
paying taxes to the state that they did not recognize and conversely, to
avoid obtaining any benefits from that state by revitalizing the Halukah
Distribution of Funds that characterized earlier generations.
-
- As such they became a self-contained community within
Israel with few formal ties to the surrounding political infrastructure.
While many in Neturei Karta chose to simply ignore the State of Israel,a
fringe element took proactive steps to condemn it and bring about its eventual
dismantling until the coming of the Messiah.
-
- Chief among these is Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, Neturei Karta's
self-proclaimed "Foreign Minister," who serves in Yasser Arafat's
cabinet as Minister for Jewish Affairs.
-
- Hirsch and his followers oppose Israel on religious grounds.
Devoutly committed to their faith, they reject Jews who do not share their
level of observance as heretics.
-
- Nevertheless, they also maintain that an Orthodox community
of Jews can and should be a viable minority in an Arab-dominated Palestinian
state. According to their ideology, the Jews were first sent into exile
for their sins, so that a secular Jewish presence in Israel could be grounds
for further expulsions and exile.
-
- At their most extreme, they claim that the Holocaust
was divine punishment for the sins of secular Jews, but at the same time
they also believe that the time will come when all Jews will repent or
be lost and the Messiah will come to redeem them.
-
- Their website claims that the Zionists deliberately condemned
thousands of Jews to die in Nazi gas chambers, rather than allow them to
emigrate to destinations other than Palestine, in order for the Zionists
to claim a Zionist State.
-
- They also claim that the mass media deliberately downplays
their viewpoint and makes them out to be just a few, while there are a
large number of Jews with the same beliefs.
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