Jewish groups critical of Zionism

The Talmud, in Ketubot 111a, mentions that the Jewish people have been bound by three oaths: 1) not to ascend to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) as a group using force; 2) not to rebel against the nations of the world; and 3) that the nations of the world would not persecute the nation of Israel excessively[7]. Some consider the establishment of the state of Israel to be a violation of these oaths.

The first religious anti-Zionist movement was Agudath Israel, established in Poland in 1912.[8]

Hareidi groups and people actively and publicly opposing Zionism are, Satmar,[9] Toldos Aharon,[10] Neturei Karta[9] .

Amongst the Orthodox rabbinical leadership, religious Zionists form a minority.[11]

religious jewish groups who are anti-zionist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neturei_Karta

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/rabbinicalcourts/crc/index.cfm

http://www.mepc.org/journal/9012_corrigan.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredim_and_Zionism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Aryeh_Friedman

In March 1919 United States Congressman Julius Kahn presented an anti-Zionist petition to President Woodrow Wilson as he was leaving for the Paris Peace Conference. The petition was signed by 31 prominent American Jews. These included Henry Morgenthau, Sr., ex-ambassador to Turkey; Simon W. Rosendale, ex-attorney general of New York; Mayor L. H. Kampner of Galveston, Texas; E. M. Baker, from Cleveland and president of the Stock Exchange; R. H. Macy's Jesse I. Straus; New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs; and Judge M. C. Sloss of San Francisco.54 The petition read in part:

. . . we protest against the political segregation of the Jews and the re-establishment in Palestine of a distinctively Jewish State as utterly opposed to the principles of democracy which it is the avowed purpose of the World's Peace Conference to establish.
Whether the Jews be regarded as a "race" or as a "religion," it is contrary to the democratic principles for which the world war was waged to found a nation on either or both of these bases.55

Albert Einstein was also anti-Zionist. He made a presentation to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, which was examining the Palestine issue in January 1946 and argued against the creation of a Jewish state. Einstein also later turned down the presidency of the state of Israel.56 In 1950 Einstein published the following statement on the question of Zionism.

I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from the practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain -- especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight without a Jewish state.57

Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook, Hannah Arendt and twenty-five other prominent Jews, in a letter to The New York Times (December 4, 1948), condemned Menachem Begin's and Yitzhak Shamir's Likud party as "fascist" and espousing "an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism and racial superiority." The same theme is echoed in William Zukerman's 1934 article in The Nation, "The Menace of Jewish Fascism. "58 This is also the premise of Michael Selzer's book, The Aryanization of the Jewish State.59

Other leading Jewish intellectuals who opposed Zionism include Louis D. Brandeis (see Menuhin, Jewish Critics of Zionism), Martin Buber (coauthor, with J.L. Magnes and E. Simon, of Towards Union in Palestine: Essay on Zionism and Jewish-Arab Cooperation, 1947), Isaac Deutscher ("The Non-Jewish Jew," in The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays, 1968), Simon Dubnow (Nationalism and History: Essays on Old and New Judaism, edited by Koppel S. Pinson, 1961), Morris Jastrow (Zionism and the Future of Palestine, the Fallacies and Dangers of Political Zionism, 1919), Emile Marmorstein ("A Bout of Agony," The Guardian, April 1974), Moshe Menuhin (father of Sir Yehudi Menuhin and author of The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time), Claude Montefiore ("Nation or Religious Community?" reprinted in Selzer, Zionism Reconsidered), Jakob I. Petuchowski (Zion Reconsidered, 1966), and Franz Rosenzweig.64 Hans Kohn, who was one of the world's leading authorities on nationalism, posed the following questions on the issue.

Might not perhaps the "abnormal" existence of the Jews represent a higher form of historical development than territorial nationalism? Has not the diaspora been an essential part of Jewish existence? Did it not secure Jewish survival better than the state could do?65

Erich Fromm, the eminent scholar, also was critical of Zionism. He stated that the Arabs in Israel had a much more legitimate claim to citizenship than the Jews. Fromm also wrote:

The claim of the Jews to the Land of Israel cannot be a realistic political claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse.66

Present-day Jewish opponents of Zionism who have published books on the subject include Rabbi Elmer Berger (The Jewish Dilemma, 1945), Noam Chomsky (The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, 1983), Marc H. Ellis (Towards a Jewish Theology of Liberation: The Uprising and the Future, 1989), Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht (The Fate of the Jews, 1983), Georges Friedmann (The End of the Jewish People, 1967), Maxim Ghilan (How Israel Lost Its Soul, 1974), Alfred M. Lilienthal (What Price Israel? 1953), Norton Mezvinsky (The Character of the State of Israel, 1972), Cheryl Rubenberg (Israel and the American National Interest, 1986), and Michael Selzer (The Wineskin and the Wizard, 1970). Several collections of articles are also useful in understanding the scope of debate within the Jewish community and especially the strength of opposition in Jewish intellectual circles. These collections are Jewish Critics of Zionism by Moshe Menuhin; Zionism Reconsidered, edited by Michael Selzer; and Zionism: The Dream and the Reality -- A Jewish Critique, edited by Gary V. Smith.