Hi Followers,
When we don’t talk for a while, addressing you comes out as a formal letter. That’s life sometimes! If you wake up with decent material conditions yet can’t help but suffer through every conscious moment, that is your soul crying out. Take comfort that you can hear it.
For reasons that will become clear later, I don’t think I have anything worthwhile to post publicly now. There’s no take, no matter how valuable, that is really worth putting out into the world. There’s plenty of good ones, check this out; There’s too much interleague play in the MLB, and the NL should get rid of Designated Hitter. Here’s another: The more Jews suffer and die, the happier Zionists are. Do you see why I’m not publishing? It’s just kinda silly. The Netanyahu Nazi government has rejected a hostage deal so it can go forward with an invasion of Rafah. What is there to do but weep? What good is a post of my thoughts and analysis and frustrations that can’t shake the thin veil of righteous holy fury? We could take the time to read 2 or 5 or 7000 words, but I sincerely don’t have it in me at this moment. IYK,YK.
But still, something gnaws. As a compromise, I’ll be publishing essays and excerpts from the writing of others.
The following is a 1958 essay by Yerachmiel Domb titled simply Neturei Karta, later republished in the 1970 book ‘Zionism Reconsidered’, a collection of essays from Jewish thinkers with a critical perspective on Zionism. Included in the book are essay by Achad Ha’Am, The Gerer Rebbe, The Chabad Rebbe (Shulem, not Menachem Mendel), Philip Roth, Simon Dubnov, Nathaniel Birnbaum, and Hannah Arendt, from whose 20 page essay the book derives its title. The following essay is the 4th essay of 16 in the book.
We have known, and we have always known, that Zionism is hersesy. How this hegemony happened, and how we let it happen, may be a great historical question of 21st Century Jewish historians trying to understand the 20th century. The following essay is written by a leader of London Neturei Karta. It holds a perspective that, at least personally, I had never been exposed to, and would not have achieved independently. Since we are obviously not Neturei Karta, there is immense intellectual, religious, and personal value to hearing them their own words. Regardless of who you are and what you think and where you come from, you are not neturei karta. They are a universally maligned and misunderstood group. They’ve been around for the better part of 100 years, and unlike most of us, they don’t have internet and phones to this day. There’s a good reason they believe the way they do. They dedicate their whole lives to thinking about this, and acting upon it. Listen to them in their own words, and consider it within the framework of your own reality. If you are an anti-zionist Jew, the underpinning philosophy of Neturei Karta holds within the potential seed for spiritual rebirth after a century of Zionist spiritual repression and death, but that’s a conversation for a different time. The primary concern of Neturei Karta is Torah, they have a self-contained logic that, unlike the revolting evil heresy of Zionism, doesn’t require constant hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance to maintain. They are principled, unashamed, and are worth listening to on their terms, if just for the 15-20 minutes it will take to read the essay (oy).
Part of bartender therapy is letting people forget you exist; in that moment, my existence as Alex is liminal. When someone tells me the story of their conception or divorce, I cannot be Alex and share Alex opinions. I must bind close as I can to the universal consciousness; the kind face of humanity that nods and says it’s ok, you can stay for another round, don’t speak too harsh, leave a good tip.
There are people walking amogus who build mental walls and checkpoints to prevent empathy for their fellow man; so they may better pretend they are better than some and worse than others. There are others who can look at any person and see themselves— in the tears of the suffering poor, the blank ennui stare of middle class traffic, in the viscous leers and taunts of a brutal oppressor. We are all even closer than brothers- we are all eachother. You are every dead child in gaza, you are their weeping mother and her martyred brothers. You are the soldier who killed them, you are the commander in Tel HaShomer who gave the order to kill them, the politician in Knesset who forces war for his personal benefit. You are the hostages abandoned by those politicians, and you are the hostages killed by IDF bombs and bullets. You are the propagandist in LA or Miami who denies that any of those killings happened but if they did it was unavoidable, necessary, and probably for the best. You are a Zionist, you are Neturei Karta. Within you is your enemy, your victim, your brother, your oppressor. To deny this is a personal denial; an attempt to seperate the individual from the rest of us, as if we don’t all fucking suck, as if we dont all sin and kill and hate and suffer and cry and lose, and that each of us has the capacity for great good or great evil that is swayed by our power of will and choice. This isn’t novel to observe (if we only made novel observations, we wouldn’t observe), just that it is always worth restating. After reading this a few years ago, this essay reshaped how I understood what it meant to oppose Zionism. While reading this essay, take a moment and bind to the eternal consciousness. Or, if that’s a bit much for you, just pretend you’re a bartender.
As you read, here is the playlist used (white) while transcribing from the book.
Thank you and I love you,
Alex
I
The world, until the time of its eventual remedy, passes through the tidal waves of alternate descents and ascents; but even in the period of the most headlong decline, an impression or a connection with the previous lofty height of ascent remains and persists throughout the period of decline until the future recovery. At the time of the flood, Noah and his family served as a bridge between the ultimate destruction of a sinful generation and the appearance of Avrohom Ovinu of a sinful generation and the appearance of Avrohomom Ovinu and his successors. And the bitter affliction of Egypt when Jews were almost completely contaminated by the forty-nine forms of defilement, from which they had to be dragged out in haste, there remained the tribe of Levi, with Moses and Aaron, who served to connect the period of the Patriarchs, with the great exaltation of the Exodus and the acceptance of the Torah. The tribe of Levi did not participate in the sin of the golden calf; nor in the sin of the spies, for which it was decreed that none of that generation should be granted the merit of entry into the Holy Land, were Caleb and Joshua involved. They served as a bridge between the lofty experience of acceptance of the Holy Torah and the exaltation of entry into the Holy Land.
So it was throughout the ages. At the time of the destruction of the first sanctuary, a remnant remained within the Holy Land itself, and many old men survived to witness the building of the Second Sanctuary. Among them were those, who had been granted the gift of prophecy, the divine gift which had been sealed by the destruction of the first sanctuary. These are the ups and downs of our history. When light gave way to darkness, the light did not become totally extinguished, even in the period of greatest darkness.
This can be noticed from the order of nature and its apparent laws. In autumn the fierce winds seem to sweep away the whole of the beauty of spring and summer, and the yellow leaves fall from the helpless trees and leave them stripped, to face the gloom of winter, when the whole splendor of the earth seems to have vanished, and everything remains waste and empty. At the same time, the winter forces the green glory and vitality deep into the ground, when it is almost at its last gasp. The seeds and roots are already there, prepared to emerge later and comprise future life out of the ground. The root is small, but is possessed of great strength. The mighty winter, with all its ferocious old and wind, cannot disturb the little root. At the very moment when the root might have been thought to be about to disintegrate within the ground, it begins to germinate and start the whole mighty process of growth into its future character.
The logic of the small minority which calls itself Neturei Karta seems to have baffled practically the whole of the Jewish world that has been swept away by the Zionist current. Many hard things have been said about them. They have been described as mad men, traitors, fanatics, who do not wish to see the blessings of the Zionist State, anti-semites, unwilling to allow Jews to have a place of refuge and rest, evil-hearted men who try to prevent Jews from being rescued from the calamities which thereaten them, men without loyalty who seek to bring back the golus from which the Zionists have exerted such great efforts to rescue the Jews, old fashioned and distorted religious reactionaries with no understanding of modern development, men of strife who now no pleasure in life other than quarrling and contradicting, brazen men who have no espect for the Gedolei Yisroel etc. One could, in fact, complete an even longer list of the grave accusations brought by various circles agaisnt the Neturei Karta, of the insults leveled at them and the libels invented about them. They are surrounded by a wall of hatred.
II
Most Jews and especially the religious Zionists of the Mizrachi and the Agudah with their followers, regard the Neturei Karta with hostility and contempt. The more moderate dismissed them as of no consequence. But the result is the same. It is generally agreed that one must get rid of them as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Every hope of coming to a compromise with them and bringing them into the general stream of Jewish public opinion has now been abandoned. It has been found impossible to deal with them under any circumstances, an one must therefore eliminate them, or wait until their obstinacy and will for conflict would bring about their elimination.
Yet in spite of the whole campaign of agitation against the Neturei Karta, it is a remarkable thing that no one knows their address, their form of organization, their leader, their executive, and their members- notwithstanding the fact that Neturei Karta is spread over the whole world and is not confined the the Meah Shearim district of Jerusalem. The trust is that Neturei Karta is not really an organization at all, because it ahs no plan or program mapped out by human minds It has not, and it does not need, all the paraphernalia of organizations with the distribution of honors involved in them.
There are no members and there is no president, because Neturei Karta represent the spontaneous feeling of Jews whose instincts demand of them that they should adopt his attitude.
They have no political spirations or ambitions for parliamentary or ministerial posts. They launch no appeals, nor do they hope for payment from the mighty collecting machines. They ask nothing for themselves, and expect nothing from anybody else.
The only force that moves this group is the pure ideal of the eternity of Israel, the force of truth which has been granted to the Jewish people. Providence has ordained that the truth should never disappear from Klal YYisroel. When the orthodox Jews of Jerusalem go forth in protest against profanation of the Torah, they do not think to gain popularity by their protests or to increase the number of votes, which they might attract at the next election. They know only too clearly that they must expect murderous beatings from he police and the desecrators of the sabbath, arrests and insults, libels and falsehoods. Yet they go on, again and again, without the thought that their protest can bring about a radical change in the situation, or that it might be possible for them to gain victories and show the fruits of their work, so that people might have respect for their achievements.
They know only the barbarities that face them on the path that lies before them, but they continue their way and do what they regard as their duty without pleasure and without fear.
They carry out their protests with devotion and sacrifice because they feel an overpowering loyalty to the Torah and to their duty towards Klal Yisroel, to arouse and to warn, to disturb the dreadful indifference towards the profanation of the Torah, the tendency to take denial of the principles of the faith for granted, the transformation of the divine and Holy people into merely one of all the peoples of the earth.
III
It is a remarkable fact that in spite of the hostility and contempt which the small group excites, its words and protests are always heard. The whole mighty atmosphere of heresy suddenly seems to be cleft by the relatively weak and feeble cry of the Neturei Karta, as if an inner voice were moving within people, a voice ailing in the wilderness, to which people are forced to listen and to grasp every word. It is curious that millions of intelligent people should show such concern for the words of a few hundred “lunatics”, but whatever people say about them and however much they reave at them, the feeling persists that their words penetrate, that their words descend most forcefully and rapidly into the profundities of Jewish feeling; and all the anger and fury cannot liberate those who hear them from the burden of these words.
It is with hesitancy that one must point out the content of the verses in Jeremiah 38. When it was the divine will to lay Jerusalem waste and to send Jews into exile, the Shem Yisborach spread this information through Jeremiah. The prophet informed the people that owing to their sins, Jerusalem must be destroyed and that the whole struggle which their patriots were waging was senseless. The help of Egypt, which was then an ally of Judah, would also be of no avail to them because that was the divine will, and because the lives of Jews are regulated not by material considerations but only by the divine will. Therefore, Jeremiah told them day after day that they should give up the struggle and surrender to the mighty army of Nebuchadenezzar, the king of Babylon. The warriors did not want to listen to such prophecies. They arrested Jeremiah and threw him into a dungeon as a traitor and a dangerous person.
King Zedekiah took Jeremiah secretly from the place of his imprisonment and asked him privately whether the word came from G”d. Jeremiah answered in the affirmative and convinced him that Jerusalem would fall into the hands of the king of Babylon. Then, we are told, when the fighting princes heard that Jeremiah had again spoken, they asked the king to put him to death “for he weakens the hands of the warriors who are left in the city and the hands of the whole people by saying these things to them. This this man does not seek the welfare of this people but their harm.” Nevertheless, they did not kill hum but placed him in a strongly guarded dungeon full of mud so that he might perish by himself. In those day, it may be pointed out, Jeremiah who prophesied in the Name of G”d and whose prophecies were all fulfilled was regarded as a traitor worthy of death, as a man who seeks the destruction and not the welfare of the people; but it must be added that in spite of the hatred of Jeremiah, the people listened to his words and that his words penetrated into their hearts. These words did rage them, but tat the same time they listened to them, in spite of everything, they did not kill the prophet; the word of G”d found acceptance.
IV
The strength of the Neturei Karta lies not in the number of adherents of the movement, or in the political influence which they are in a position to exert. Their strength lies in the power of continuity, the continuation of the process leading from Mount Sinai and the covenant between Shem Yisborach and Knesses Yisroel, the process of eternal sanctity. Neturei Karta has nothing new to offer. What it says today is exactly the same thing as was said by Jews generations ago, and it represents their thought simply and self-evidently without embellishment.
It is only as a result of the emergence of this last mighty movement of heresy and confusion that the mentality of Jews has become so completely deranged that to many people simple Jewish teaching and a natural Torah attitude should appear to be a form of fanaticism and savagery and a matter of individuals— as those who are nearest to Neturei Karta think— or something which should be uprooted and destroyed— as the majority not only think but are sufficiently outspoken to say aloud. It is actually true that these mighty currents of heresy have almost completely swept away the ordinary Jew. Although those who belong to the Neturei Karta are really steadfast people who in their daily lives reveal a greater measure of devotion to the Torah than others. But they are only the survivors of a point of view which represents the natural and eternal part of Klal Yisroel. What the Neturei Karta Jew says today was said yesterday by even the Jewish artisan who was only able to recite Tehilim.
The attitude of Neturei Karta toward the whole character of the Zionist movement and of tis State is merely an expression of devotion to Torah and the whole of our faith, to our ideals of purity and holiness. If attachment to these ideals is really devoted and powerful, without a thought of compromise or alternatives then the response of the Neturei Karta on the challenges of our time is simple, self-evident, and the only possible.
V
The sin with which the Neturei Karta is most often repreoached is their lack of funds. At every opportunity their opponents throw it in their faces and ask “What have you achieved?” “Where are your buildings?” “Where are your institutions?” The Zionist way of thought has now made its way into most Jewish minds and has inspired such questions which are often asked specially by religious Jews.
The Zionists have been explaining for fifty years that the most important thing in Jewish life is to build up a country with houses and order material achievements; and this way of thought has gradually penetrated with other Zionist ideas into religious Jewish circles in relation to the Torah. Today everything is measured by the building and the amount of bricks at the disposal of Torah institutions. These achievements in brick and mortar are photographed and the results used for publicity purpose. The content of the teaching is judged by the appearance of the edifice in which it is given— something which is much easier to display.
One should not criticize Torah institutions and Yeshivas, and the last people who would like to do any such thing are the Neturei Karta because the Yeshivas are the sources of Torah from which Torah Jews emerge. It would certainly be preferable if these institutions were equipped with all conveniences and housed in imposing buildings with all possible external adornments that are fitting for the honor of Torah.
Yet, to adorn Torah institutions with external honor is one thing, and to make out of externals the main reason for their existence is another. It is not merely a matter of emphasizing the importance of externals, but even of spreading the impression that the xternals are likely to save the Torah; and this is especially unacceptable if these material attractions are exploited as a means of competition and attack against those who are not able to afford such amenities. It is not merely a question of strength but rather of the argument— clearly ridiculous— that material improvements, howerver necessary they may or may not be, contitute a guarantee that those who have achieved them are, by virtue of their capacity, men crowned witht eh seal of truth, and that those who have not the means for such achievements have therefore shown thatt the truth is not with them.
It should be made clear to every thinking human being that the correctness of a point of view has no relation to achievements even if they be expressed in the most grandiose forms of architecture. Our Torah institutions have adopted Zionist propaganda techniques and the emphasis is now being laid on external achievements; and then the Neturei Karta, which has no such financial resources, naturally tends to be despised as a group of people without achievements to their credit. It would seem to be forgotten that the Mishnah, the Gemore, the Rambam, the Shulhan Aruch, and the whole edifice of Jewish holiness was also created and will be continued without the help of large financial resources.
VI
Yet not only is it no coincidence but it is even an obvious consequence of events that such should be the general impression. All the Torah institutions that have been established in Eretz Yisroel in recent times, and at least the majority of all those with something to display before the wider public, have succeeded with the aid of money from Zionist sources. Such aid, whether it be great or small, exercises an influence over the creators of these institutions and also upon the institutions themselves.
Nor is it a coincidence that the creators of these institutions should wish to display their achievements and thereby provide arguments and criticism which can be directed against the Neturei Karta. The surrender to the Zionist current and the connections with Zionist bounty all by themselves create a storm of abuse against those Jews who understand fully the perversity of Zionist ideology and whose clear and genuine understanding cries out loud and at the same time exercises pressure on all outside it to criticize and to attempt to put an end to it.
One must once again repeat that the views of the Neturei Karta do not oppose extensions to tor the improvements of Torah institutions and certainly not their wider distribution, because Yeshivas are the source of Jewish life, the true basis and guarantee of the whole existence of Judaism; but the adornment sand attractions must not overshadow the content of the teaching in Torah institutions. One is certainly prepared to respect and honor those who create them, but at the same time unwilling to give them a blank check to follow their own tendencies.
It is regrettable that Jewish with a real understanding should not be in a position to be at the helm of all Torah institutions, and more regrettable that those who stand at their head now have flexible conviction and, in some cases, are even prepared to be swayed in any direction that the wind may blow. This is a part of the contradiction under which we live— a contradiction imposed by the material poverty of those who are truly conscious of their obligations and of the simple Jewish religious masses exposed to the dazzle of “achievements”. Look, they are told, a the inactivity of Neturei Karta! Other people are creative and show results which can be seen from magnificent photographs. Ordinary simple Jews find themselves swept away by the external glamour of this ridiculous argument and thus there is set up a wall, dividing them from the words of the Neturei Karta in spite of the absolute truth of their content, in spite of the clear faith on which they are based.
VII
In our day, ordinary human beings are influenced by externals probably to a greater extent than they were before. That is why the positions of leadership in Jewry are occupied by men who have something to show for themselves. True it was not of their own free will that the Torah institutions are induced to display photographs and to glory in the splendor of buildings. They had to obtain the necessary financial assistance and the people to whom they were compelled to make approaches were those on whose minds external splendor makes a decisive impression. And the process works both ways: Those who exploit externals are in turn influenced y the externals which they exploit.
This process has been combined with the desire for justification that is particularly necessary to men who are not sure that what they are doing is the right thing. On the one hand, they seek to justify themselves in the face of Zionism and the stress which it lays on externals, and, on the other, they need arguments derived from “Achievements” in order to silence the voice of the Neturei Karta, which is really the voice of their own uneasy consciences. Unfortunately, their attempts at justification have met with a considerable measure of success.
In this connection, it is as well to remind ourselves that the influence of materials achievements among Jews is even greater than it is among all other peoples. The thousand of years of exile have left their powerful impression. The sufferings have Jews have deprived them of a suitable and natural attitude to such achievements. In the eyes of the ordinary Jew and especially for the Torah Jew, the magnificence of a building is no ordinary matter. He has not the same familiarity with them as have the members of other peoples of the world whose possession of such buildings for generations have enabled them to take them for granted.
One can therefore easily understand the enthusiasm aroused by attractive buildings for Yeshivas that are now being built, and the difficulty facing the Neturei Karta in the face of their efforts to show that this is not a decisive arguments against the simple and absolute truth which they represent.
This factor is effective not only in relation to the Neturei Karta but also in connection with the general Zionist influence that pervades Jewry. This manner of hawking around photographs would appear to be a modern Jewish innovation. The Zionist boast by all manner of means of their success in draining swamps— an art which the Indians and the Chinese have apparently long forgotten. The Dutch, on the other hand, do it every day and have been doing it for years. Large stretches of land have been redeemed from the water and made fruitful at half of the cost of the enormous sums raised by the Zionists from donations for that purpose. But the Dutch have done all that without boasting of their sacrifices or making any claims to fame on that score.
Other peoples have achievements to their credit of far greater significance, but nowhere do they make such a fuss of them as among simple-minded Jews. Others regard them as perfectly natural developments in the light of mechanical progress, but Jews are so swept away by photographs and the fascinating descriptions by which their own minor achievements are exaggerated, that they tend to look upon them as unprecedented; and when they manage to infect some non-Jewish personality with their enthusiasm, they feel able to proclaim that their achievements arouse the admiration of the whole world. This is another instance of deceiving others for the purpose of deceiving oneself.
VIII
Yet all the accepted glamour of achievements has not swayed away the last small fortress of true Jewry. That is part of the secret of the power of Neturei Karta, the fact that they are prepared to reject money which would bind them to be under an obligation to Zionist charity. For they are prepared to reject even the thought that with that money one could achieve anything for the sake of Torah. They are prepared to make this sacrifice because they realize quite clearly what would be the final result of attempting to achieve anything through such money. In spite of their possible resolution to use such money purely for torah purposes, they know that their acceptance would mean that they would go the same way as the others.
It was felt that the importance of the task of establishing and maintaining Torah institutions was such that it was legitimate to accept money no matter from which source it came, that they money helped to crate something valuable in spite of its origin. That was the apparent attitude of the general institutions with a tolerant attitude toward the state. Yet the fact remains that in spite of the plausibility of this argument, the results turn out to be quite different from those anticipated.
The Neturei Karta, the orthodox Jews whose minds are not confused, refuse to accept money from Zionist sources at a time when the “Saviors” of the Torah and the builders of buildings, have put up their edifices with Zionist assistance and support. That is because genuinely orthodox Jews know that money is accompanied by influence and the fact is that all these great builders, who seek with all their might to hate the Neturei Karta, have incorporated in their buildings the influence of Zionism. This influence bores holes in the walls and through them Zionism creeps into the building and causes the Zionist heresy to seep into the very teaching given within the walls.
When one gives way to the current, one tends to be swept away by the stream A tiny measure of surrender can be compared to the folly of a man who drinks salt water in order to quench his thirst. Every sip cerates a fresh desire to consume more, every surrender to the spirit of the day attracts people no to the Torah— as the majority may think— but to another surrender, however unlikely this may appear on the surface. With all the torrent of talk about attracting children to the torah, one has not yet witnessed the sight of masses of children of the Mapam or even of Mizrachi parentage being attracted. The exceptions are too few to be worth of consideration. What we see is that the whole 99 percent of Torah institutions attract only the children of Torah parents; and the only purpose of all this compromising and bowing to the storm is that the small number of surviving Torah Jews should be swept away with it.
it is possible that even by minor deviations the Neturei Karta could acquire a certain amount of respect and importance in the eyes of superficial people. But that prospect does not attract them because their point of view is inspired by the truth. And that without human calculations or improvements the expected from deviating form that truth to even a certain extent. That is the force that moves them, for it calls to them to conflict with all attempts to water down our faith, or to compromise it with harmful and foolish interpretations. Again, perhaps that is one of the greatest trials, that truth itself should appear diminished and confused and that the opposite of it should have all the opportunities of attracting people through tits various charms and attractions, some of them even garbed in the mantle of Torah and achievements for Judaism, some of them even actuated by honorable intentions, so that the confusion of mind should be complete, and should embrace everything.
IX
There is nothing which has not been prphesied in the TOrah because the Torah contains an account of the fate of mankind from the Order of Ceration until the final destoiny of the world. Some things are covered with obscurity but, remarkably enough, many things have been most clearly foreseen and expressed in the Torah and in the sayings of Hazal.
The things that concern the oresent age, which is the immediate approach to the coming of the Messiah, have been clearly described not only by the sages but also in the written Torah. When we contemplate the terrible decline of Torah and holiness, when we obvserve the pettiness of the gernation, the most petty of all generations, when we reflect on the whole revolution that has taken place among the Jewish people, then we must at the same time take note in what detail our ssages foresaw these developments in the XIth chapter of Sanhedrin. “The generation in which the Son of David will appear is one in which Talmidei Chachomim will descrease and the eyes of those that remain will be consumed in pain and anguish and harsh decrees follow one upon another.” Furthermore, they forsee that the whole people will turn to the view of the Sadducees, that disciples will be few in number, that arrogance will increase, that men will despair of the redemption, that it will be a steadily declining generation, and a generation upon which troubles will sweep like a river breaking its banks.
Many other expressions of the sages can also be applied to the events of our day. The fate of the survivors, the small number of geuinely orthodox Jews has been clearly foreseen. “The wisdom of the scribes will become foul, truth will be lacking and he who shuns evil will be mocked.” As the Gemora adds, everyone who shuns evil will become a mockery to human beings (as Rashi puts it, “the world will regard him as a fool”). Why then should orthodox Jews complain of their misery and impotence, when their fate has been so clearly foreseen by the sages in whom they believe with the whole strength of their souls.
X
One may not descend too profoundly into the details of this matter. The Rambam says that the matters relating to the coming of the Messiah are not known in detail, and those who reflect on their nature belong to the “mediators of the end” against whom the sages have expressed the strongest condemnations. All that the sages have said about these matters, constitute only general outlines. In most instances they only hinted at what they felt at liberty to relate.
The real content of the teaching regarding the coming of the Messiah was transmitted by the sages according to the tradition (Mesora) received from Mount Sinai where the limits as to the amount that could be told, hinted or reserved were also defined. The tradition as received by them from many teachers, generation after generation, reaching back to Moses from Sinai. The general outline, however, has been handed down to us.
The holy Maharal Mi-Prag in his books, which were written under the influence of Reuch Hakodesh explains why everything will be so petty and miserable at the end of the days. Everything must also disappear before it rises: before it becomes day, even the moon, the light of the night, is also diminished; the seed almost rots before it springs to new life again. That is the order of the world. The remedy of the world will become more complete with the coming of the Messiah. For completion requires a lack of something beforehand, and the lack of light must embrace all sections of Klal Yisroel for the sake of the completion of the great light that is to shine for all. The opposite must be complete, false-hood and folly must be carried to the extreme, and truth must be almost entirely humiliated as it is today in front of our eyes. That is what we have been told. For the sake of the completion of the light that we hope to behold in our time, we must endure complete and universal darkness.
XI
But many members of the religious sections of Jewry will ask: in which way do Neturei Karta hope to be of assistance in this terrible period of transition? What is their plan for the rescue of the Torah from its decline? We must, they will add, have an organization with a concrete program and plan and, if our financial resources are so poor and weak, then we must try to make use of other sources of assistance in order to achieve something, to build schools and Yeshivas. What does it matter if it is Zionist money or not so long as we achieve our aim? We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the Zionist State exists. How can one set oneself against fact and reality which determine our present state and problems? Such is the development of the superficial logic of those— who are not completely swept away by hatred of Neturei Karta— but agree with the views of the Agudah and the Mizrachi, or of those who have been bought and those who have been fooled, who have placed themselves in the service of the last and greatest form of idolatry, the Zionist epoch.
The Neturei Karta have no premeditated plans or time-tables through which they might be able to rescue Klal Yisroel, either spiritually or material, not because they have not the capacity to sit down and work out a kind of plan with all the high-sounding phrases that other parties can manage to produce, but because the Neturei Karta does not believe in a plan to solve the problem of Jewry. We have been told in the Torah: "“Lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” It is this separation from the peoples of the world that is the basis of Jewish holiness.
It is remarkable how in all time the feeblest Jews always sought to make themselves as similar as possible to, and to learn from, the peoples of the world. Zionism, which is Gentile nationalism, has acquired something of its ideals from Gentile socialism and communism. The middle-class general Zionists are always in a minority and they, too, believe in and praise the collective settlements and other fruits of Marxist conceptions in slightly different forms. When Marxism affected the world, either in its radical communist form, or in a milder socialist form, it also succeeded in impressing on the capitalist world the importance of planning, of trying to map out schemes for the future of the whole of mankind in the greatest possible detail, Zionism, with its completely worldly Gentile approach, also took up planning very eagerly, and in itself constituted a plan for the political and material solution of the Jewish problem.
Marxist ideas were incorporated into it in all their severity. The Zionist collective settlements have been praised by different circles as accurate expression of the fulfillment of Marxist ideas. Yet the real content of Marxism, the basis of its approach to the world, is derived from a completely atheistic conception of the problem of mankind.
This is unavoidable. Marxist atheists cannot believe in divine supervision of humanity. They believe that the fate of humanity can and must be regulated down to the minutest detail through plans worked out in advance according to one or another interpretation of economic and trade conditions.
The attempts to crush all religions with great severity in Communist countries are based on one of the fundamental principles of Marxist thought. As soon as the Red Army “Liberated” peoples and “free popular democracies” were established, even anti-gentile-religious agitations were inaugurated and given full scope. For atheists think that the fate of the world lies under human control, that the earth produces its fruits in accordance with the projects of the economists and, if not, it can be forced to obey through artificial means such as increases of the application of fertilizers, etc. The breeding of cattle and poultry can also be regulated according to plan and so can the supply of milk and eggs. Even the rate of reproduction of human beings can be regulated according to the methods accepted by Marxist planners and their adherents.
Although Zionism confused almost everyone, it did not really bring about general acceptance of its solutions because apparently not everyone had grasped their significance. For instance, words like “organization” and “plan” were accepted as simple and self-evident expressions, which every development in Jewish leife today had to adopt in some form or another. Whatever task was in front of Jews, such as, for instance, the strangthenin gof Torah in Jewish communities, also had to be conducted on the models laid down by our Zionist-Marxist teachers.
There had to be a plan and the plan needed a lot of money and buildings to show that it was working, and thanks to the compromise or, better still, to the inclination to follow the general stream, we had to follow suit.
All this involved acceptance of the Zionist State with its assistance and its ways of thought, because Zionism with its ultimate heresy, has demoralized the whole way of thought of Jewry and penetrated to the inmost regions of Jewish life.
The Neturei Karta has no plan because they deny the very reality of a plan, and particularly of any plan concerned with Judaism and Torah questions. Since our acceptance of the Torah, we have not entertained plans for the buildings or for the “attraction” of others through compromises, and the Torah lived among Jews and flourished in spite of the absence of a plan. For two thousand years Jews have not planned their future, whether it be political or economic, and we went on existing. The Neturei Karta are not against improvements that may be introduced, but seeing that Jews are believers and acknowledge divine rule over the world with reward and punishment, believe that even if we are permitted to make use of what is available for our needs, yet we cannot hope to work out a plan for the solution of the Jewish question, either at the present time or in the future.
XII
In Neturei Karta circles, of course, there is no need to agitates against mixed marriages or forbidden food or even in favor of a Torah education for their children. Such matters do not constitute problems for them in any way, not because of their opportunities or conveniences, which eliminate problems, but because they have that profound will and loyalty toward the Torah to such an extent, that the temptations relating to such problems do not even exist.
Human beings are moved by will power rather than by opportunities. In fact, will power creates opportunity. The mightiest armies are moved to fight and to win only by the will power of the human beings who constitute them. The same sort of human beings are on both sides of the front and are commanded by the same sort of human beings. Profound and honest faith, observance of the Torah in all the details laid down by the Torah itself, devotion to Torah and holiness, these constitute the force that leads Jews to overcome all their difficulties and to cause temptations to disappear.
This is the plan of all plans. The best constructed ship is unlikely to keep afloat if it has a hole in it. All the Torah institutions in the world are of little avail if they are penetrated directly or indirectly by the Zionist heresy. The task today is to spread the pure faith among Jews, as simple faith in the thirteen principles, belief in the Divine level of Knesses Yisroel, belief in the coming of the messiah in the divine manner accepted as an article of faith by Jews from the time of the revelation on Mount Sinai, and to warn and arouse the dormant but sacred inward point in the Jewish soul.
When Jews are in a condition to return to their root, to the bond which unites them with Shem Yisborach through the purity of faith, then all problems are easily solved. The Chedorim are built by the parents themselves. Torah education is supported without the need for a campaign by all those who realize its significance. They would not ask for presents or inducements. Such has been the way throughout our history, in every country and in all generations. There are many examples well known to all of su: the poorest Jews in Poland; our oppressed bretheren in the underground caves and mellahs of North Africa; the Marranos in Spain; the Jews in Hungary today, who save from their meager rations in order to conduct Chedorim and Yeshivas; the Jews who still anguish in Siberia for the sin of establishing Chedorim in the Red Paradise in defiance of the Yeveskias.
The poorest Jews in Jerusalem testify to this wholehearted capacity to sacrifice themselves for their faith. Yet once the faith has been disturbed, then all the finest material structures and institutions are of no avail. The Mizrachi with all the enormous resources placed by the Zionists at their disposal are the best proof of this.
Enormous amounts are at the disposal of the nominal Jews, the various branches of the anti-religious religion, which is called reform, liberal progressive, conservative, or any other name with which they prefer to call themselves in order to mislead Jewish people. Their mighty temples which echo with their emptiness and darkness, should bear witness, together with the modern “orthodox” semi-reform United Synagogue. The multiple of old and new buildings where a minyan has to be hired in order to satisfy their Kaddish saying members. All the mighty shrines , all their choirs, their Reverend gentlemen and Very Reverends, have not been able to attract or to secure the form of diluted religion handed to their members in the most palatable form. Their towering walls and all their very able planned possibilities have not prevented the constant draining away of their homemade deviating religious substance.
Because the correct way of a Jew is only the one prescribed by our Torah, and the correct way of consuming that Torah view must also be the way of Torah itself, and only then can that be assured of complete success. Not because of any human calculations, but the success is assured on the strength of the eternal holiness of our Torah, and its insoluble bond with the Jewish soul. This enteral bond is the strength of the success which does not know limitations and is not influenced by circumstances however grave and frightening they might be. The main essence of our Jewishness, is the unquestionable belief in the principles of our faith. This belief is the beginning and the final aim of a Jew. The degree of intensity of the Emunah is the degree by which the greatness of a Jew is assessed as in turn this can only be obtained, to the degree of a Jew’s nearness to the G”dly Holiness of the Torah. Belief is the fundament of our ideal of holiness and today it ahs become the question of the age.
The plan of all plans is to spread the pure faith and to fight against complete heresy. The Neturei Karta are endeavoring to fulfill this fundamental and historical task Face to face with the whole forces of hostility, with all the fanatical hatred with which they are constantly greeted, equipped only with the limited resources available to them, with the few pennies collected together by poor people with a love of the Torah, they face unflinchingly the persecution of the Zionist police, the blows and the midnight arrests and even the murders committed by these fanatical atheists. Without regard for themselves, they stand proudly under the flag of the eternal holiness of Israel.
XIII
It is ridiculous to accuse the Neturei Karta of treachery and hatred of Jews. It is almost too ridiculous even to discuss it. These are Jews who live not for themselves but only for the Torah and for the fulfillment of their sacred duty toward Klal Yisroel. They can certainly hold their heads high in the presence of the Zionist lovers of Israel who use only the latest type of Cadillac for their transport.
The Neturei Karta took no part in Zionist battles with the Arabs in what the Zionists call “the war of liberation”, because believing Jews put no trust in the war of liberation or in the Zionist State. They have no faith in Zionist deliverance or solutions for the Jewish problem. They are convinced that Zionism is the direct opposite of all that constitutes Judaism. they hold that the Zionist State— as they call the State of Israel— is an embodiment of the denial of the character of Judaism, not a stroke of fortune but of misfortune.
All the Zionist propaganda about the miraculous way of the establishment of their state and the “liberation” of the Jewish people is but one chain of falsehood and negation of the true Jewish essence. Here it must be said taht the act of Providence which could be seen when the establishment of the Zionist state has taken place, or as they prefer to call it “war of liberation”, is that the old city with the place of sanctuary has not been “liberated”. The Zionists had to stop by the walls of the Holy City of Jerusalem, in order to prevent the eventual profanation of the place of the Holy Sanctuary which might have taken place had it been included int eh Zionist redemption. Also that the exclusion of the Holy city of Jerusalem with the site of the sanctuary thus serves to remind Jewish people that the Zionist state has nothing to do with the holy yearnings of the Jews, through two thousand years of golus and the expectation of true Jewish redemption.
Believing Jews need not compare themselves with Zionist devotion to their State. Other people have exhibited even greater devotion in fighting for their country. Britain in 1940 is an example in our day; and the Japanese with their ritual suicides, and the Russians who threw themselves beneath German tanks with dynamite in their hands can put the Zionists in the shade.
But orthodox Jews have a long history of self-sacrifice, living their lives in one long process of self-sacrifice for Torah and holiness in a way which no one has eyt managed to imitate. The jew who with songs on their lips greeted the fires of the Inquisition are but one link in the long chain extending from the sacrifice of Yitshaq Ovinu up to the millions of Jewish sacrifices in later times. We have drenched almost the whole world with our blood in defense of our faith long before the heathen Zionist struggle was envisaged. We have nothing to learn from the Zionists and we shall fight with all strength against their teachings. The Neturei Karta are fighting the whole Zionist ideology in all its branches because they recognize the deadly peril which it involved— a peril which is not only spiritual but material as well.
XIV
We are in golus for our sins. We have been exiled by Divine Providence and we must lovingly accept our sentence. Our sages have told us that three oaths were taken by Jews when they went into exile; (1) that they should not hasten the end even through excessive prayer (2) that they should not seek to enter Eretz Yisroel in a body before the predestined time (3) and that they should not rebel against the peoples of the world; and the sages have added and comment on the verse “I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and by the hinds of the field” to the effect that if Jews keep these oaths, it will go well with them, but if not, their flesh will be outlawed like that of the gazelles and hinds of the fields. For believing Jews the words of the sages constitute a reality which no amount of Zionist propaganda can alter.
Nor will they take into account the distortions of a number of short-sighted Zionist rabbis and their adherents, or of those who have been materially rewarded for climbing on to the Zionist bandwagon.
They see in Zionist conceptions of danger for Klal Yisroel. In their eyes, the Zionist salvation has brought with it the almost complete destruction of Torah. Believing Jews have stood firm against all kinds of attempts to defile them and they will survive this last and mighty Zionist campaign of defilement.
The Neturei Karta can be described as the Remnant of Israel; and whatever the derogatory and even insulting epithets hurled at them, it is becoming increasingly recognized that they have one sacred purpose and one sacred function to fulfill in our time.
It is also rather ridiculous and a waste of time to deny the different versions of the struggle waged by the Neturei Karta against those who profane the Torah, i.e, that they throw stones or turn over cars on the Holy Sabbath or throw bombs, etc. Zionist atheists and secularists always think in mundane terms about any struggle. They have become estranged from Judaism and in their estrangement they tend to envisage the Neturei Karta as if it were just a movement like their own. They talk about Neturei Karta “commando groups” and “battle formations” that take to the streets on sabbath to fight against those who desecrate the Sabbath. Such descriptions throw more light on those from who they originate than on the Neturei Karta. In spite of all their lies, everyone knows that the Neturei Karta, who protest against desecration of the Sabbath, would hardly make themselves so ridiculous as to desecrate the Sabbath in the course of their protests.
It can only be believed by those who have no appreciation of the sanctity of the Sabbat and whose hostility toward orthodox Jews makes them willing to believe anything about them; and in particular anything that can besmirch their character.
Anti-Semites throughout the ages have spread blood libel against Jews, in spite of the fact that many of them must have had some elementary knowledge of the Jewish religion and were aware that Jews did not eat even the blood of animals on any occasion; but the hatred of Israel was so strong that it made such accusations acceptable to them. Doubtless the repetition day by day of the most ridiculous libels about the Neturei Karta, which are so reminiscent of the libels of Jews throughout the ages, can also make them acceptable to those with a motive for spreading them.
XV
It is, nevertheless, remarkable that the strongest opposition to Zionism and to its adherents should come from those Jews who live in Jerusalem, from people who one might have expected, in accordance with Zionist propaganda, to be the first to appreciate the good things which the Zionist State has brought them. The very fact that they are there and maintain their vigorous protests against Zionism is first-hand evidence of the correctness of their attitude toward the whole problem.
They struggle against the Zionist ideal together with the State, which marks its fulfilment, not with bombs, which are Zionist weapons, but with reason, with explanations of the principles of Judaism and the dangers that threated the Jewish way of life as a consequence of the connection between the Jewish soul and the Zionist heresy. They seek to extract this heresy from the Jewish soul, and in doing so they prove with reasonable arguments the falsehood of Zionist theories as well as the great calamity which Zionism has brought upon Klal Yisroel.
Realizing that it is not possible at the same time to influence the whole of Jewish public opinion, and with one stroke to turn the current of heresy in the opposite direction, they concentrate their efforts on the surviving remnant of the faithful and seek to secure that this remnant should remain unscathed by Zionism. They refuse to allow among themselves any connection with the Zionist machine. They reject any attempt to interfere with their determination to maintain their distance from Zionism in their daily life, and in the upbringing of their children.
Orthodox Jews are naturally happen when a Jew finds himself on the way back to the root of his existence, but they are unwilling to budge from their positions. They bind themselves, with the utmost of their strength, to the immovable pillars of our eternal Torah. Through their firmness they maintain the continuity of the golden chain leading back to the genuine Gedolei Yisroel, to our Gaonim, to the Tannoim and Amoraim and the promises foreseen by the Prophets, to our Torah as reveled on Mount Sinai, and to the whole legacy of holiness that has been handed down to us.
Such is the significance of their name. They are the guardians of the city who preserve the sacred flame from being extinguished. With all their might they seek to preserve the seed from destruction and to plant further stretches of the vineyard of the House of Israel.
Thank you for reading. Free Palestine.
Hellayryius yor indliss spiyleng ehrors
Typical yeshiva illiteracy and long-winded diatribes that convince no one except for your Islamic overlords who fund you
you're elementary school literacy or less on a test.
You lament Zionist 🤑💰
iran & Qatar & usaid $ flow to subversive retards like you need to know where it goes to enable momsers like you