Endless Enmity by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky 2025 August 8

It is Zionism that bothers the gentiles, not Judaism. The gentiles know the dirty secret that the Zionists are invaders who represent only themselves and not Jews, even if they publicly play along that the Zionist paradise is “Jewish”. They don’t see Jews as Nazis, but rather the Zionists, again, of course. Et al.

The “MO” Rabbi surely knows that while Israel did not exist during the Holocaust, Zionism most certainly did – and the Zionists were provoking, fighting and terrorizing both the British and Arabs before, during and after that Holocaust – in addition to lobbying governments against allowing in Jews to their lands to escape the Zionist-caused Holocaust, despite world governments offering to take in Jews to save their lives. Therefore, his argument of “It is not the existence of Israel [that causes them to hate], because as the Holocaust reminds us, they also hated us when there was no Israel.” is fallacious even if, at best, it is technically true that the Zionist “State” did not formally exist until 1948.

Zionism is not Judaism: never was and never will be.

zionism is the cornerstone of judaism

Rabbi Pruzansky is telling it as it is with regard to the most recent episode of The Antisemitism Saga, however this has nothing to do with the real reason for antisemitism. Hashem created this force to keep us the עם הנבחר, even when some don’t want to be. When ‘Israeli’ tourists, who forgot that they are ‘Jews’, try to eat in a treif restaurant, the Goyim remind them. When ‘Israelis’ cruise to beach resorts in the Greek islands (right wing government notwithstanding), angry yokels show up and remind them הן עם לבדד ישכון. Who cares about Right, Left, Gaza, Progressivism, Nationalism, Communism, Jews-Killed-Yoshke, Jews-Killed-Palestinians, etc. The entire Zionist movement was based on the notion that by establishing their own nation-state they would lose the stigma of ‘Jews’ and become ‘Israelis’, i.e. a new type of Goyim, who would then be accepted into the ‘family of nations’. At the time, the global Leftist/Socialist/Marxist movements were their best friends (and the Right usually not so much so back then…), and Israel was a socialist de-facto one party state, with much government intervention in the economy and job market, for its first 30 years of existence. Then Hashem started taking them apart piece by piece, through various ‘natural’ events and shifting ideological winds, to the point where today it is painfully (for them) obvious that an ‘Israeli’ remains a ‘Zhid’, and antisemitism isn’t going anywhere… Actually, today’s Israeli Left thinks the whole Zionism thing was a mistake, and their solution is to embrace Progressive ideology, declare a secular ‘State of all Citizens’, and forget the whole ‘Jewish’ thing ever happened… That ain’t goin’ anywhere… But only the Arabs can tell them that, because they don’t listen to anyone else.

@hakatan

“zionist caused holocaust” that is a disturbing statement which I shudder to see written by a fellow jew. Apart from the fact we are not neviim and do not know why the holocaust happened, the blame for the holocaust lies with the nazis. End of. Hitler was very specific when he blamed all the worlds ills on the jews. He and the nazis did not differentiate between any of us, religious or otherwise. No one type of jew was spared and to blame an event of that magnitude on one type of jew simply displays your own prejudices and means what you say cannot be taken seriously.

YYA > Hashem created this force to keep us the עם הנבחר, even when some don’t want to be.

Well, this does connect with Zionism. R Schach writes that because early Zs were ready to go to Beirut University, antisemitism had to be activated – to protect them from intermarriage. Inter alia, this means that R Schach thought that Hashem cares about Zionists …

But while the hesranos of Zionists are obvious, their achievements are also easy to see – all Jews who were saved through their efforts. If you want, they diagnosed the problem well – that Europe is not just dangerous but more dangerous than before. Their solution may not have been perfect. But those who had perfect solutions but missed out understanding urgency of the question were less helpful. It may be not a surprise that Herzl that lived the modern life understood Dreyfus affair and what it implies while some rabbonim who were not involved in the world.

Yaakov Yosef A:
Nope. Hashem designed this world, especially during galus, that we be separate from the nations. “VaAvdil eschem min haAmim liHyos li.”
He also designed Antisemitism as a wake-up call for when Jews get too close to the nations, CH”V. As Rav Chaim Brisker noted, if the Jews don’t make kiddush, then the goyim will make havdala.

Zionism is, of course, the ultimate assimilation, and has spread its ideological tentacles worldwide in unprecedented ways. That is what is frightening to a maamin or at least to anyone who thinks he is a maamin.

IzoBar:
The gedolim have written about it, including (but not limited to) Rav Miller’s “A Divine Madness”, though in general much less than one would expect out of sensitivity to Holocaust survivors. But the history is clear. The facts are what they are. It is totally irrelevant what Hitler YM”Sh did or did not consider as a Jew. He was just a Divine “stick”, as Rav Elchonon wrote. In Kovetz Maamarim, Rav Elchonon wrote that the two predominant idols served by Jews then were Nationalism and Socialism. Heaven thus arranged, middah kinegged middah, a deadly combination of those two forces in the form of, of course, the Nationalist Socialist party of Germany of the time, otherwise known, in short, as “Nazi”. Again, the facts are what they are.

@YYA:
“HaKatan – It is the ברית בין הבתרים that bothers the Gentiles. They don’t know or care about the difference between Satmar and Lubavitch, between Brisk and Har HaMor, between Ponevizh and Ponevizh, between Reb Arelach and Tzohar, or between you, me, ‘Square Root’, and ‘AAQ’. We are all Zhidden and fair game for murder ר״ל. The ideological flavor of the month (of the Goyim, or the confused Jews) makes no difference. Zionism was the second to most recent, and one of the most thorough, attempts by ערב רב to reject the Jewish end of the ברית בין הבתרים, and Hashem activated the Goyish end of the ברית בין הבתרים with devastating results. The most recent such attempt is post-Zionism/Progressivism, and Hashem again activated the system on Simchas Torah 5784. What WE have to do is תשובה תפלה וצדקה, and to help more Yidden do the same. Not deluding ourselves that the ‘only’ problem is Zionism, (and therefore we are OK, because we don’t like Zionism…)”

This is completely right.

Hamikaten:
“It is Zionism that bothers the gentiles, not Judaism. The gentiles know the dirty secret that the Zionists are invaders who represent only themselves and not Jews, even if they publicly play along that the Zionist paradise is “Jewish”. They don’t see Jews as Nazis, but rather the Zionists, again, of course. Et al.”

This is wrong and you know it.

AAQ said – Well, this does connect with Zionism. R Schach writes that because early Zs were ready to go to Beirut University, antisemitism had to be activated – to protect them from intermarriage. Inter alia, this means that R Schach thought that Hashem cares about Zionists …

Of course it connects with Zionism, that was part of what I said. But it has nothing to do with what the Goyim think they are angry about, it is something directed from Above. Who said Hashem doesn’t care about Zionists? They might not have cared about their end of the Covenant, but Hashem sure cared about His end, BECAUSE Yidden cannot escape our special connection to Hashem. That is exactly what the ברית is all about.

AAQ – But while the hesranos of Zionists are obvious, their achievements are also easy to see – all Jews who were saved through their efforts.

Something about the arsonist joining the fire fighters… (And even then, only partially.) The destruction had a great deal to do with assimilation and secularism, of which Zionism was a major part. (This is aside from the שלש שבועות issue, which I don’t want to go into again.) Many Gedolim said that, some out loud, some quietly, but to claim ‘we just can’t ever know’, or only with hundreds of years of hindsight, is disingenuous. Zionism wasn’t a PRACTICAL movement to save Jews. If it was, they would have been equally happy to save them by sending them anywhere they could go, by any means necessary. They infamously refused to do so. It was an IDEOLOGICAL movement to build a Judenstaat, everything else be damned. Some Frum Jews happened to have been saved by them by mistake because they knew someone who knew someone who begrudgingly gave up some ‘certificates’ earmarked for Chalutzim, to save some ‘old Rabbis from Poland’. והדברים ידועים ואכמ״ל. Please do not start another debate on the history, it has been thoroughly beaten to death.

AAQ – It may be not a surprise that Herzl that lived the modern life understood Dreyfus affair and what it implies while some rabbonim…

Herzl, at that point in his life, did not understand ANYTHING AT ALL about anything to do with Jews or Judaism. He was taken COMPLETELY by surprise, and said so himself. Emphatically so. He was shocked how viscerally the fine French gentlemen despised the thoroughly assimilated Dreyfus and the other thoroughly assimilated French Jews. Some good people explained to him that Christians don’t like Jews, because we rejected their religion. So, he came up with the brilliant idea of convincing all the Jews to convert to Christianity… He went all excited to the Bishop of Vienna, who explained to him that they already tried to do that, but it didn’t work… So then he came to the conclusion that if Jews had their own state, like the French have theirs, so then the Goyim would accept us as just another nation-state… היו לא תהיה. He went to his grave (from syphilis) still thinking that Uganda would be an ideal place for such a state… Rabbonim understand Torah, and Torah tells us EVERYTHING we need to know in order to be the עם הנבחר. Even if we die for that, we don’t die the way Herzl did ח״ו…

AAQ – I don’t think it is likely “zionist” fault, as they were a significant part of those who survived and prospered after that.

So did the Germans… No one claims to be able to fully understand how and why Hashem operates. We have a Mesorah that “punishment” is the result of “sin”. The Holocaust certainly qualifies as “punishment”. Many people bigger than you and me said Zionism qualifies as “sin”. If you don’t like it, zol zein gezindt. You are still a Yid, and so am I, and so is HaKatan.

AAQ – Zionists proposed to have a [secular, atheist, socialist] Jewish state in [anywhere] (EY) and that happened, and they saved (millions) (Which millions did they save from death? The million they refused to save in Hungary, because it wouldn’t help their cause, or the 900,000 who fled Muslim countries as a direct result of the founding of the State? Maybe a few thousand were directly saved by Zionist individuals, not the movement as a whole.) from death and (assimilation) (?! Inside Israel secular Jews assimilate less by default, although the real Leftists manage to find Shiksas to bring over from Europe.) in process, and [despite their best efforts to the contrary] established [על אפם וחמתם]a place where Jews can keep mitzvos and learn Torah. I am not suggesting voting for mapai [long since defunct, sort of replaced by עבודה which is also defunct, now the moldering remains of the three or four Leftist parties joined forces as ‘Democratim’ to sort of stay alive], but we should acknowledge the facts. [That Hashem saved us from the Zionist efforts to destroy us ברוחניות, which had the side effect of helping us בגשמיות]

AAQ – I think a lot of tensions come from projecting old political arguments onto current events.

I have said that to ujm etc. But that doesn’t mean that the same underlying problems aren’t there, they just change names and ideology.

AAQ – To see effect of this history – look at Sephardim, where Shas combines multiple groups and there is less inter-group enmity.

LOL LOL LOL!!!!!!! I won’t ruin your innocence…

They did not go through haskalah and reform and socilaism – but right now, they are stam Israelis, but they are less affected by the political outrage.

Most American Ashkenazim know very little about the world of the different Sephardi communities, which is just as rich, varied, and nuanced as the Ashkenazim are. I am married to a Sephardi woman, who (despite being the daughter of a decorated veteran of the Golani Brigade) would take great offense at being referred to as “stam Israeli”. To very briefly summarize a huge topic: The Sephardi mentality does in fact tend to see community members of all levels of Jewish knowledge and observance as an organic whole. Those sometimes wayward members also tend to see themselves as full fledged part and parcel of the community, who deeply believe, respect, care, and support חכמי התורה, לומדי התורה, and all things Jewish, and would never be caught dead doing anything to ח״ו harm any of that, despite their own weaknesses. Some have attributed this to not having gone through Haskalah and Reform etc, but it goes deeper than that. (Haskalah did make it to most Sephardic lands, but later and with less ferocity.) Sephardim historically faced (relatively…) less hostility from the local non-Jews, so they tended to interact more with society at large, but still nowhere near what Americans are used to. To חוצניקים, these traits, combined with looser dress code and seemingly “Israeli” pronunciation of לשון הקודש, make Sephardi Chareidim seem more “Israeli”, but that isn’t how they see themselves. There are also different varieties of Sephardim, who unfortunately don’t always get along as harmoniously as you seem to think… although Rav Ovadia was a uniquely powerful personality, who was able to reach out to and unite very different people, and singlehandedly led a Sephardi Torah renaissance. The fact that they don’t yell and protest as much doesn’t mean they aren’t affected by the “political outrage”. The reality is that they are MORE affected. Just look at where and to whom most of the recent arrests were directed… The Leftist ערב רב, who largely despise the Sephardim and are largely despised by them, see the Sephardi Chareidim as the “weak link” in the Chareidi Torah world, and more vulnerable to “integration”. The fact that the Sephardi חכמים are fully on board with a חרדי coalition stretching as far as the Yerushalmim tells you pretty much everything you need to know about where they really stand now.

HaKatan – I actually agree with many things you say, but the מצב today is more complex than 80 years ago. The fact that Zionism was a major disaster ברוחניות is very clear. How to clean up the mess that they left behind is more complicated.

AAQ – I agree with most what you have (agreeing with me:), but I don’t agree with this last one. Sephardi chachamim indeed go great length to show uniformity and be seen as part of Israeli charedim. Still, the performative rejection of everything related to the country does not exist there.

That was exactly the point being made. Even the Sephardim, who are less opposed to the State per se, are working together with the Kanoyim (not just UTJ) on THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE, because it is NOT necessary to go as far as “rejection of everything related to the country” in order to be opposed to sending 18 year old boys to a “gender integrated” Progressive social engineering tool, that also happens to be an army. This has been explained here many times, not just by myself.

Hakatan showed his ignorance – or maybe apikorsis – earlier. He claimed “It is Zionism that bothers the gentiles, not Judaism.”
Maybe he just chooses to ignore the fact that it says “Halacha B’yaduh Sh’Eysav Sone L’Yaakov”

Yaakov yosef thats why your not G-d

Blah blah this Jew that Jew. let’s start with, we are all human. Falible imperfect. Different from one another. Let’s just accept that not everyone is like us. It’s such a nasty disconnected world out there everyone so uptight about everyone else living by “thierX rules. There so many diff rules it can’t be your way is the only way.
Live and let live
Thanks

the same people that argue that “Zionism is surviving so it must be (chalila) good!” also argue that today’s “Zionism” has nothing to do with original “Zionism”…

@always_ask_questions
I adamantly disagree with your statement. The core ideology of zionism is alive and well, and it is a kefira that is at the core of the heretical teachings of RZ in the same way as across all zionist groups.

somejew > The core ideology of zionism is alive and well, and it is a kefira that is at the core of the heretical teachings of RZ

you are trying to pull fast one.:
– Z is bad because it is anti-religious
– Z is still popular, because RZ is an extension of Z
– RZ is bad because it has Z in the name, even if it is not anti-religious

yankel > existence of the state is not against the oaths

this is a good distinction. There is such an idea as a social policvy b’dieved. R Soloveitchik published in article in support of YU opening a medical school.
Some people were upset – they were donating money for Jewish education, and now it expands into other areas. He says there that he was not consulted on this issue; if he were, he does not know what he would have said – but he can give a b’dieved justification, explaining that Jewish communities both in Lita and USA suffered from having only non-observant doctors and pharmacists who are not sensitive to religious concerns. Having them being exposed to a Jewish institution will be helpful for the communities.

Bottom line

that remains clear : khazar state existed under the jewish religion

the second temple was built under persian rule

afterwards it stood under greek rule

why is rebelling against greek rule not against the oaths ?
.
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YB:
The Steipler is misquoted as claiming that the “State” is halachically permitted once it’s been established. That is sheker gamur, as pointed out. He allowed only voting in that “State”, which would have no bearing on the continued anti-Torah existence of that “State” which he obviously never permitted.

And, again, the chashmonaim’s reign – about which you asked in your prior post – was during the time of the Second Temple, to which obviously the oaths did not apply. Same with the Chanukah and the Greeks. The oaths did not apply during the Temple periods. They came into force upon Hashem sending us into Galus.

Regarding the Khazars, the king converted after having already been king, and that kingdom anyways didn’t last, not that it matters since he didn’t ask any rabbi for permission to rule as a Jew; he just did so.

Bottom line: Zionism, of any flavor, is absolutely against G-d and His Torah.

Khazar (and also Yemen Jewish state in about 10th century) is an interesting example – if this were controversial, there should be some discussion of shevuos at the time.

I think the weak spot in this discussion is that there are very limited sources on both sides – as the issue was not “hot” for centuries. So, it is worth looking at the times and halachik sources that discuss relevant issues – and if they skip over the issue of shevuos, what are the implications?

Hashem sent us under the persian golus even with a temple

and then He put us under the greeks under galut yavan .

why should the oaths not apply ?

we were ,clearly by Hashems decree under galut yavan .

what right did they have to rebel against that ?
.
Source please ?
.

somejewiknow: you said: “I say zionism is bad because it rejects fundamentals of Yiddishkeit: moshiach, schar v’oesh, and the definition of “Klal Yisroel”.”

Please elaborate. How does Zionism reject these things? I am a Zionist. I most definitely believe in Mashiach. I believe in schar v’onesh. I define Klal Yisroel as including all Jews, with Jews defined by Halacha, through matrilineal descent.

yankel berel:
What part of “the oaths are applicable only AFTER the Temple (either one) was destroyed and the galus started” was not already clear from the prior posts? The oaths do not apply during Temple times. That’s why.

The Khazar state is not a question on anything. The State existed when they were gentiles, and some of their ruling class then converted to Judaism. And their reign did not last all that long (the Zionists, too, will also eventually see their idol fall into the dustbin of history).

AAQ:
The Oaths are brought down as halacha throughout the millenia, including by the Rambam himself in Iggeres Teiman.