The universe squeezed into a little ball

You dared to eat the peach

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

The opposition to Zionism among European Rabbis was near monolithic, but it wasn’t monotypic. Even discounting fairly niche varieties such as that of R. Shimshon Refoel Hirsch זצ’’ל, there were at least three strands of anti-Zionism. One, particularly associated with R. Amram זצ’’ל, focussed on Zionism as a secular movement that, at best, distracted Jews from religious observance and, in practice, actively undermined it. A second, advocated most forcefully by the Satmar Rebbe זצ’’ל, concentrated on portraying Zionism as an act of rebellion against G-d, drawing heavily on the famous Three Oaths to argue that trying to bring forward the return of the exiles to Zion by political or military means was the gravest possible religious crime. These two tendencies still have vociferous advocates today. However, there is a third strand that in recent decades has barely been heard. Here are some quotations:

In our holy Torah, it makes no difference what character this Jewish state will have. Even if it would be a Jewish state run completely according to the Torah law, even if the president and prime minister would be Reb Chaim Ozer, and everything would be done according to the Torah – even then it is forbidden that even one Jew be killed in order to establish a Jewish state. That is the crux of the issue here. The issue is not how the Jewish state will be run, religiously or secularly. The point is that it is forbidden for Jewish blood to be spilled for the purpose of establishing a Jewish state. And since it is impossible to accomplish the partition without spilling Jewish blood, it is forbidden to accept this plan.

Brisker Rov זצ’’ל

After the sin of the spies, Moshe Rabbeinu told the Jewish people ‘Do not go up and do not fight’, but they went up anyhow ‘and the ark …..’, This is a prophecy about our time. The Zionists go up to Eretz Yisrael: The Zionists go up to Eretz Yisrael with a strong hand to fight with the gentiles. This is against the command of Hashem who warned against this way and said it would be bitter in the end. But the ark and Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah, the Torah leaders and the loyal Jews, did not move from the camp to join the Zionists. ‘And they beat them and destroyed them until Chorma’ refers to the destruction and the killings we have seen in Yerushalayim near the Kosel.

R. Chaim Elazar Shapiro of Muncacz זצ’’ל

The state of Israel solves nothing. All ‘problems’ remain and new ones are created. 1) The Arabian lands have been rendered uninhabitable for Jews; 2) constant wars with neighbours 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; 4) and the proponents of the State of Israel attempt to kindle a fire under the Jews of all lands in order to make their position untenable so that they emigrate to augment the population of the state.

R. Avigdor Miller זצ’’ל

The Torah teaches us not to resist the nations even when they fight against us. We must follow in the footsteps of Yaakov Avinu, in his encounter with Esav. As the Ramban writes in Vayishlach, all that happened between Yakov and Esav happens to us constantly with Esav’s children. We must adopt the methods of that tzaddik, to make three preparations that he made: prayer, a gift, and escape through war, that is to flee to safety. As long as we walk on that well-tread path, הקב’’ה has 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 Chofetz Chaim זצ’’ל

There is a fearful danger looming on the horizon of Judaism, a danger the likes of which never existed before. This movement is likely to bring destruction on the Jewish people! Write that in my opinion, the rabbonim should get together and excommunicate the Zionists from the Jewish people. They should forbid their bread, their wine, and intermarriage with them, just as Chazal did to the Kuthim. I am certain that if we do not take this step, the Jewish people will eventually regret it.

Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin זצ’’ל

In short, Zionism is assur for the same general reason that driving at 100 mph after necking a bottle of vodka is assur, because you might kill yourself and a bunch of other people too.

Of course, this argument against Zionism was never fully separate from the others. Were Zionism, not a rebellion, but a fulfilment of the divine command, presumably it would merit divine protection. In practical theology, metaphysical and physical causes are always intertwined. The basic case against Zionism is that Arabs are violent people, and if you anger them, they will try to kill you. This is a specific application of the general principle that it is forbidden to provoke the nations, because this leads to the spilling of blood. This prohibition is categorically not based on a supposition that goyim are good and kind, which is why it was most sternly insisted upon by those whose anti-gentilism was most over the top. The fact that the Arab is prone to hysterical spasms of violence, that he cries out in pain as he saws off a child’s head, is not a justification for you to provoke him: to the contrary, it is precisely the reason that it is forbidden to do anything that might possibly provoke him. 

A critic might describe this as cowardice elevated to a theological principle. If you make it to Olam haBah, tell it to the Chofetz Chaim’s face. The truth, in any case, is that a counsel of prudence can only really be assessed by measuring - or, before the fact, estimating - its consequences. The reason why this particular form of anti-Zionism has not been much in evidence for the past fifty years is because it looked like Zionism was working. The war in 1948 went pretty well albeit leaving ample room for doubt, but the war in 1967 went swimmingly, and even 1973 was in reality an overwhelming victory resulting in historic peace agreements. True, since then, progress on the victory front stalled somewhat, and there were waves of terrorism, sometimes extremely serious, but put it in context. Forget about the Holocaust, was it worse than the pogroms, the Farhud, the Fez massacre, the Pinsk massacre? The answer to that question was ‘obviously not’, except for the very worst days of the second Intifada, and with a wall here and a checkpoint there, we got through that.

The problem with being validated by history, though, is that you become its hostage. Bit by bit, Zionism has long ago abandoned the more idealistic justifications of its founders. A Jewish cultural and artistic renaissance? Nope. Shedding the stigma of the usurer? Sorry about that. A mystical union of the Jew with his native soil. LOL, LMAO even. Only one thing was left: safety. And, as bathetic an argument that was for what was once one of modernity's great romantic movements, it was still a pretty good argument, in the round, considering. 

What now, though? 

It’s long been a hard statistical fact that a Jew in America was safer than a Jew in Israel. Not everyone can live in America though (for the time being). Being a Jew in Israel was for sure better than being one in, say, Argentina, and the proof was in the pudding. During the era of Zionist aliyah, something like half a million Jews made the journey to Argentina, where you could buy a hundred acres for the price of a pond with malaria in it in Palestine. After the establishment of Israel though, the Jewish population gradually dwindled to less than 200,000 while Israel’s only grew and grew. Life in Israel was just better, and, above all, safer, than most of the alternatives, but not anymore. Life in Argentina has its troubles, but cowering in your bomb shelter while subhuman religious freaks with submachine guns, coked off their head on some weird Arab drug, set about burning down your house isn’t one of them. A hundred thousand or so rockets pointing at you from over the northern border, just waiting to pop off if an event outside of anyone’s control sparks a full-scale war, isn’t either.

Where, exactly, are Jews today less safe than they are in Israel? Not in France, not even in South Africa. We can, of course, still comfort ourselves with the thought that a Jew is safer in Israel than he would be in Iraq, but that can hardly be counted as an argument in favour of Zionism. 

In fact, properly considered, just about every hasbara trope is a demonstration that Zionism was a mistake. Not a crime, not an inherently illegitimate enterprise, and not something that is devoid of things to admire, even to imitate, but, still, a mistake. Is Israel basically an island of sanity and decency in a region plagued by depraved orcs for whom no feud is too old or too trivial to enact the most ghastly forms of revenge given half the chance? Pretty much, probably not such a great place to build a country. Have the Palestinians rejected every offer put to them, only to turn once again - like an especially retarded dog to his rotting vomit - to unfathomably pointless forms of mindless violence? Well, what were you thinking when you built a country on top of them, then? Is Israel a tiny country, inherently devoid of strategic depth, surrounded by multiple hostile militaries and paramilitaries, with their arms trained upon it, waiting for the tiniest crack through which they can pour and slaughter without limit? Well, you get the idea. If we hadn’t done Zionism, we would no doubt be plagued by doubts of what could have been had we only had the courage to take history by the scruff of the neck, perform mighty deeds, and become a nation, free in our own land. In our timeline, however, we know, and so we must regret.

That is not it at all.

That is not what I meant at all

The saying goes that when you’re in a hole, the first step is to stop digging. This is not quite precise. The first step is to stop gaslighting yourself into thinking that digging the hole was a stroke of master-genius. The first purpose of this Substack is to persuade you of that. Once you’ve put away your shovel, we can start talking about what you can do instead. Your first instinct might be to start looking around for a magic lamp, but hopefully we can do better. Maybe there’s a rope ladder somewhere or other if we look for it.