HC VLB Anticionistak

László Bernát Veszprémy
Jews against Israel – The Hungarian Roots of the Neturei Karta Movement
It is perhaps well known that the founder of modern political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was
born in Budapest and was a Hungarian Jew. So was his most loyal aide, Max Nordau, but also
other important members of the Zionist movement (such as Hannah Szenes or Teddy Kollek).
It is perhaps less well known that Hungarian Jews were also busy at the foundation of the
Jewish anti-Zionist movement.1
The basic aim of Zionism was to restore the Jewish state (in the then Ottoman Palestine) that
had been destroyed in ancient times. Judaism has since then maintained an attachment to
the Holy Land (see the text of Psalm 137), but rabbinic Judaism has developed the view that
Jews cannot take back their ancestral homeland by force, but must wait until the Messiah
comes. This is the so-called "three oaths", according to which, among other things, the
gentile nations of the world promised God that they would not oppress the Jewish people
too much, and the Jewish people promised not to take back the Holy Land by force.
To this day, some religious Jews invoke these "three oaths" to reject modern Zionism and the
State of Israel. Other religious Jews argue that since non-Jewish peoples broke this oath
during the Holocaust, the oath does not apply to Judaism anymore.
This brings us to the Neturei Karta organisation, whose name is two Aramaic words meaning
Guardians of the City (referring to the parable in the Jerusalem Talmud that the guardians of
the "city" [Jerusalem] are the pious religious folks and not the soldiers). The loosely
connected organisation split off in 1938 from the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Yisrael,
which initially rejected Zionism, but later took a pragmatic stance on the idea and the Zionist
movement.
An anecdote quoted in one place by the left-wing anti-Zionist historian Lenni Brenner says
much about the anti-Zionism of the Neturei Karta. According to this anecdote, when the
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) entered into negotiations with Israel, these orthodox
wanted to break off relations with them, saying that the PLO had betrayed the anti-Zionist
cause. Yasser Arafat also had a Jewish 'adviser' at one time, the Orthodox anti-Zionist Rabbi
Moshe Hirsch.
Today, there are several other Orthodox organisations which are non-Zionist or anti-Zionist,
some of which maintain cool relations with Israel, others accept state support but are not
Zionist – so there are many positions on the spectrum. The Neturei Karta is undoubtedly the
most radical: they have met with the then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of
Israel's main opponents and they regularly demonstrate in favour of Palestine and burn
Israeli flags.
1
A useful read on the history of religious anti-Zionism is the monograph and works of
Canadian historian Yakov M. Rabkin, although he is biased against Israel. Yakov M. Rabkin: A
Threat from Within. A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism. Zed Books, 2006.
In their view, the Jewish state is not simply a violation of a religious commandment, but the
‘appropriation’ of their Jewish symbols, values and identity, and also the cause of a bloody
conflict in which innocent Jews and Palestinians suffer. Critics of the Neturei Karta, on the
other hand, say that it is a marginal, extremist group, composed of a few families who are
fanatical enough to shake hands with people who are actively working to destroy Jewish
lives.
Incidentally, it may be noted that there are other varieties of Jewish anti-Zionism, including
Marxist, Trotskyist and other left-wing anti-Zionists, as well as liberals (some followers of the
religious reform movement, for example). It is interesting to note that, like modern Zionism,
Jewish anti-Zionism also has Hungarian roots, with one of its first prominent representatives
in Palestine being the Hungarian-born Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld. As for Reform anti-Zionism,
American Reform Jewish anti-Zionists being brought together by Elmer Berger, who was
partly of Hungarian-Jewish origin.
Another strand of anti-Jewish Zionism was assimilationist, patriotic anti-Zionism, which held
that Zionism as a separate Jewish national identity was in conflict with, for example,
German, French or Hungarian national identities. Lajos Szabolcsi was a vocal proponent of
the latter in Hungary before the Holocaust, but this movement has now been almost
completely silenced.
The anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews demonstrating in New York are therefore not necessarily a
curiosity. They are representatives of an old and historically legitimate school of thought,
albeit completely marginalised and despised in their own religious milieu as well. Their
presence merely demonstrates that Judaism is diverse, that there are all kinds of trends and
that it is not possible to treat this community as a single monolith. It is another question
whether they should so openly stand up for their views when 1300 Israeli civilians have been
barbarously massacred by Islamists. As some Jewish Twitter users have indicated: at times
like these, people of good taste should remain silent in their criticism of Israel.

HC VLB Anticionistak

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

HC VLB Anticionistak

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

HC VLB Anticionistak

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

László Bernát Veszprémy

You might also like