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ON THE LAST TISHA B'AV OF HIS LIFE (1948) - BY MINCHA SHEMONA ESREI - AT V'YERUSHALYIM IRCHA B'RACHAMIM TASHUV - HE BROKE DOWN WEEPING AND NEVER RECOVERED. (PM)ת.נ.צ.ב.ה |
The ‘Anti-Zionism’ of R’ Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz and Others
Zionist Zealots
On Friday, November 29, 1947, the United Nations debated the issue of partitioning the British mandate for Palestine into two countries—one Arab and one Jewish. R’ Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (1886–1948) prayed fervently for partition. He had no radio in his house but that Friday, he borrowed one and set it to the news, leaving it on for Shabbos. He waited with such intense anticipation to hear the outcome of the UN vote that he didn’t come to shalosh seudos (“the third Shabbos meal”).
When he heard the UN’s decision to establish a Jewish state, he recited the bracha of hatov v’hameitiv.[1] Without losing sight of the anti-religious nature of the leaders of the state, he still saw the creation of the Jewish state as an act of providence and as a cause for rejoicing. At the very least, there would now be one country in the world whose gates would be open to the thousands of Holocaust survivors still languishing in displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria. R’ Shraga Feivel once said that even though Eretz Yisrael is controlled by non-religious and anti-religious Jews, one must still admit the good that Hashem had done in causing the gates to the Land to be open once again to Jewish immigration.
R’ Shraga Feivel compared the new State of Israel to a breech birth. When a baby is born normally, head-first, the delivery is easiest and safest for the mother and promises the best for the future development of the infant. In the context of the establishment of Jewish political sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael, a “head-first” birth would have been one in which the great Torah leaders—the real heads of the nation—led the way. But even in a breech birth, despite the danger to the infant, one can still hope that it will live and be healthy.[2]
A response written in 1948 to a Jew in Iraq posits that it definitely is a mitzvah to move to Israel nowadays, as it is full of yeshivos and Torah.[6] Yet he advised that if someone was unsure of which path he would take once arriving in Israel, it’s better to remain a religious Jew in the Diaspora.[7]
Hearing R’ Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz’s criticisms of Zionism, someone once said, “I too hate the Zionists. They should be cursed.” R’ Shraga Feivel retorted, “G-d forbid. To the contrary, they should be blessed, along with all those who are building up our Holy Land. I only pray that they observe mitzvos but G-d forbid to curse or hate them. They are tinokos she’nishbu[8] (people who never received a Jewish education and were led astray).”[9]
[1] In 1948, after the Arabs attacked the new Jewish state and soldiers were dying on the battlefield, some Roshei Yeshiva criticized R’ Shraga Feivel for having recited the bracha. R’ Shraga Feivel turned to R’ Aharon Kotler who agreed with him that the favorable UN resolution was indeed worthy of a bracha.
[2] In the 1930s and 40s, there was virtually no event or simcha in the religious Jewish world that didn’t begin with the playing of the Zionist national anthem, Hatikvah. During its playing, R’ Shraga Feivel would sit fixed in his place. He explained, “their hope (tikva) is not ours because it doesn’t include the Beis Hamikdash or the coming of Moshiach.”
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