Chabad and Israeli politics

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement's involvement in Israeli politics, from the Rebbe's opposition to territorial concessions to the 1996 "Bibi is good for the Jews" campaign

Chabad and Israeli politics
Key figure	Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Rebbe 1951–1994)
Core positions	Opposition to territorial concessions ("not one inch"); "Who is a Jew" amendment to the Law of Return
Key episodes	1988 election (Agudat Yisrael); 1990 "dirty trick"; 1996 "Bibi is good for the Jews"; 2005 Gaza disengagement protests
Israeli centre	Kfar Chabad
See also	Chabad messianism; Yitzchak Ginsburgh; Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva

Chabad and Israeli politics covers the involvement of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the politics of the State of Israel. Formally non-Zionist, the movement became under its seventh Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, one of the most politically assertive Haredi groups on Israeli affairs, despite his never visiting Israel. The scholar Aviezer Ravitzky writes that Chabad Hasidim, "despite their full commitment to their traditional non-Zionist stance ... repeatedly call upon the government of Israel to adopt a clear-cut hawkish policy, to oppose any territorial concessions, and to manifest a firm Jewish stance toward the nations of the world". The movement's main interventions were the "Who is a Jew" campaign and the 1988 election; the 1990 collapse of Shimon Peres's attempt to form a government; the 1996 "Bibi is good for the Jews" campaign; and, after the Rebbe's death, activism against the 2005 Gaza disengagement.

From anti-Zionism to political engagement

The fifth and sixth Rebbes opposed Zionism. Ravitzky records that in 1900 Shalom Dovber Schneersohn "ruled that even if the Zionists strictly followed God's commandments, the Torah-faithful Jew is forbidden to join them", and that Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn opposed "all secular activity and mundane labor in Eretz Israel". Under Menachem Mendel Schneerson this changed. He "granted explicit legitimacy to collective political and military Jewish organization in the Holy Land", and after the Six-Day War he "publicly stated that the merit of those who participated in the war was even greater than that of those who studied Torah". Ravitzky concludes that Chabad "has moved in practice (if not in theory)" from greater separation from Zionism to "maintaining more contact with the Zionists and their leaders than do other contemporary Haredi circles".

The Rebbe, Ravitzky writes, "tended to intervene regularly in the general affairs of the state on a broad agenda of issues, ranging from religio-national identity (Who is a Jew?) to foreign affairs and security". Ravitzky quotes Aharon Dov Halperin, editor of the Chabad journal Kfar Chabad, who summed up the movement's stance as "total opposition to Zionism and nationalism, coupled with a stringent prohibition against handing over a single inch of the territory that the Lord granted us".

Opposition to territorial concessions

The Rebbe opposed returning territory captured in 1967. A reference entry states that he "adopted a rigid position on the question of Israel's occupied territories" and "opposed the Camp David accords (1979), which returned the Sinai to Egypt", and that he later "condemned the Oslo accords (1993), which he feared would lead Israel to cede land to the Palestinians". Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, writing from an explicitly anti-Zionist, critical position, add that "in 1974 he strongly opposed the Israeli withdrawal from the Suez area" and that from 1967 "the Lubovitcher Rebbe always supported Israeli wars and opposed any retreat". They also say that in the mid-1970s he shifted support from Labor "sometimes to Likud and sometimes to a religious party", with Ariel Sharon as "the Rebbe's favorite Israeli senior politician".

The pikuach nefesh argument

Chabad presents the Rebbe's position as a matter of saving life (pikuach nefesh) rather than the holiness of the land. A Chabad.org essay "based on the teachings of the Rebbe" cites Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 329. It argues that "Giving up territory will make you more vulnerable to attack. To give up territory in return for a promise of 'peace' is not just a reckless gamble of your and your people's lives — it's a gamble that you're sure to lose." It adds: "The holiness of the land is not the issue ... The issue is pikuach nefesh, saving lives." The JTA noted in 1990 that the Rebbe's "decades-long position has been that Israel should not surrender 'one inch' of territory", a stance "at odds not only with the Labor Party but with some of the most revered Torah sages in Israel, who uphold the primacy of saving lives over territorial sovereignty".

Editor's note: the Chabad slogan of "the wholeness of the land" (shleimut ha'aretz) is widely used in Chabad campaigns, but no verified primary text by the Rebbe defining it has been cited here yet.

The historian Colin Shindler records that in 1970, during the War of Attrition, the Rebbe wrote to Golda Meir "suggesting that God was punishing Israel for failing to correct the flaws in the Law of Return". He also writes that "the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik", among others, "attacked the leadership of the NRP for its weak-willed approach to this fundamental question of Jewish status". Menachem Begin, cultivating religious voters, "noted, for example, that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had argued that the Land of Israel belonged to the Jewish people and that such a right would never be revoked". After his 1977 victory Begin sought the blessing of Zvi Yehuda Kook "as well as that of the non-Zionist Lubavitcher Rebbe, who similarly promoted the biblical dimensions of the Land of Israel".

"Who is a Jew" and the 1988 election

The Rebbe campaigned for decades to amend the Law of Return so that only conversions performed according to halakha (in practice, Orthodox conversions) would be recognised. He did not succeed. In the November 1988 Knesset election he backed the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael. The Los Angeles Times reported from Kfar Chabad that "Schneerson, 86, sent videotaped instructions to his followers ... to vote for Agudat Israel" and that "Habad spent $1 million in 12 days of campaigning on Agudat's behalf, followers say. The rabbi's campaigners promised blessings to voters." Agudat Yisrael doubled its vote and won five seats. Ravitzky likewise writes that in 1988 Chabad's "intense activity had a decisive role in the surprising success" of Agudat Yisrael. The head of Chabad in Israel, Arye (Leon) Kaplan, told the paper that the Rebbe wanted to fight assimilation "through the 'Who Is a Jew' law": "You can buy a conversion for $25 in California ... If we don't want to have a split in Judaism, we must make conversions uniform."

The religious parties' demand to amend the law in return for joining a Likud coalition provoked the sharpest rift until then between Israel and American Jewry. Labor's secretary-general Uzi Baram called it "the first time, the first time ever" that Israel had seen such a rift with American Jews. At the Council of Jewish Federations convention a Holocaust survivor declared: "I came out of Auschwitz, a place where they decided 'who is a Jew' ... I didn't think I was going to live to see the day when it was decided in Israel." The reference entry notes that "many of Schneerson's opponents on this issue were Reform and Conservative Jewish leaders in the United States, some of whom were financial backers of the Lubavitch movement". Shamir eventually formed a national unity government with Labor in December 1988, and the amendment was not passed.

The 1990 "dirty trick"

In March 1990 Labor leader Shimon Peres brought down Yitzhak Shamir's unity government over the Baker plan for talks with Palestinians, then tried to form a Labor-led coalition with ultra-Orthodox support. The episode became known in Israel as ha-targil ha-masriach ("the stinking trick"). On 11 April, as the Knesset gathered for the confidence vote, two Agudat Yisrael members, Avraham Verdiger and Eliezer Mizrachi, withdrew, leaving Peres "two votes short of a majority". The Los Angeles Times reported "a spate of reports over the weekend" that Schneerson had "ordered two followers in Agudat to oppose Peres". Shamir went on to form a right-wing government in June 1990.

Chabad denied direct responsibility. The Rebbe's spokesman, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, called him "apolitical" and said of the two MKs: "They did not speak to the rebbe." He conceded, however, that Verdiger had called Lubavitch headquarters to ask whether the Rebbe still opposed ceding territory, and that the two could then "deduce that the rebbe would be opposed to a party that had on its agenda the surrender of territories". Time wrote that "the defection was manufactured by Rabbi Menachem Schneerson", while noting the spokesmen's version.

American Jewish reaction was sharp. Rabbi Alexander Schindler of the Reform movement said that "Rabbi Schneerson, sitting in his study on (Brooklyn's) Eastern Parkway, decided that Agudat Yisrael would not participate in the proposed government", and asked "How can a religious leader in good conscience reject the idea of moving toward peace when the young men in his own movement are exempted from military service". Rabbi Allan Nadler told Time: "It's a disgrace; it's completely disgusting." Ravitzky says Agudat representatives in 1990 "played a central part in determining the fate of the parliamentary coalition and of the new government".

Shindler describes the ultra-Orthodox MKs of 1990 as "the territorially expansionist Lubavich and the 'dovish' Degel ha-Torah", and states: "The Lubavicher Rebbe ordered two MKs to withdraw from supporting Peres."

1996: "Bibi is good for the Jews"

After the Rebbe's death in 1994 and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, Chabad activists campaigned against Peres in the 1996 direct election for prime minister. According to the reference entry, "the Lubavitch movement put up thousands of posters with the words 'Bibi Is Good for the Jews'". The Los Angeles Times reported that the slogan drew "charges of racism". Likud campaign chief Tzachi Hanegbi responded: "now we hear that in the Jewish sector the absolute majority of Jews believe Netanyahu is good for the Jews and I believe the absolute majority of Jews are not racist." The campaign was bankrolled by the Australian mining magnate and Chabad rabbi Joseph Gutnick. A Jerusalem Post op-ed called it "a racist election campaign ... funded by Australian mining magnate and Chabad rabbi Joseph Gutnick, and energetically backed by the Lubavitch movement". It said Netanyahu won "by a margin of 29,457 votes". Shahak and Mezvinsky write that Chabad followers "played an important role in Netanyahu's election victory by demonstrating at many cross-road junctions". They add that the followers later criticised him "for meeting with Arafat, signing the Hebron agreement and agreeing to a second withdrawal".

2005 Gaza disengagement

After the Rebbe's death, opposition to territorial withdrawal continued, but mainstream Chabad institutions became more cautious. In 2005 the Forward reported that "Chabad activists have emerged as some of the most militant opponents of disengagement in Israel", while "the central leadership in the United States ... has avoided organizing an official campaign against it". A June 2005 rally at Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights was "dominated by a faction of the Chabad community that believes that the movement's late rebbe ... will return to life as the messiah". There, "leaders of mainstream Chabad institutions have made efforts to distance themselves". Rabbi Avraham Hecht attacked the leadership: "When I read that the Lubavitch took a position that we're not to get involved, it went against everything I know ... This is deportation, not disengagement." At a Manhattan rally organised partly by the Chabad group Pikuach Nefesh, Rabbi Aaron Raskin explained the official reticence: "The rebbe wanted it to be a Jewish campaign [not only a Chabad campaign]". See also Chabad messianism.

Shindler writes that Netanyahu "had been endorsed by the influential sage, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who had coined the slogan 'Netanyahu is good for the Jews'", and that in 1999 "the rebbe significantly refused to endorse Netanyahu since the Likud leader had negotiated away parts of the Land of Israel".

Editor's note: Shindler's wording is chronologically impossible. The Rebbe died in 1994, so the 1996 endorsement and the 1999 refusal can only refer to the Chabad movement or its rabbis acting in his name, not to the Rebbe personally.

Settlements, the army and Hebron

Kfar Chabad, founded shortly after 1948, was in Ravitzky's words "a physical base for its spiritual enterprise". From it the movement "established many centers throughout the land". Ravitzky also describes campaigns on "army bases", where young Hasidim appeal to individuals to perform a commandment on the spot. In the 2023 Gaza war, Chabad.org reported that its centres near bases in Eilat, Hebron and Metula were supplying troops and helping soldiers "put on tefillin". It also reported that the entire rabbinate of Chabad of Hebron was serving in uniform on reserve duty. Chabad of Hebron's director told Chabad.org: "We need to know confidently that this is our land that G‑d gave us." For a critical account of Chabad activity in the 2023–24 war, see David Miller's article under Critical perspectives below.

American-born settlers also sought the Rebbe's support. The historian Sara Yael Hirschhorn records that in February 1980 a Palestinian killed a yeshiva student in Hebron, and the Defence Ministry suspended new settlement building. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, founder of Efrat, then "first sought out the counsel of his powerful colleague Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitch Rebbe who had recently given his blessing to the new settlement of Efrat". The Rebbe advised him to enlist Rabbi Chaim Druckman to lobby Begin. In the American-founded settlement of Tekoa, Hirschhorn lists "two kindergartens (community and Chabad-movement affiliated)" and Lubavitch among its prayer communities.

Shahak and Mezvinsky claim that "among the religious settlers in the Occupied Territories the Chabad Hassids constitute one of the most extreme groups". They name Baruch Goldstein and Yitzchak Ginsburgh.

Editor's note: Shahak and Mezvinsky write as critics of Chabad. Goldstein's Chabad affiliation is disputed and is not confirmed here by an independent source. Ginsburgh's Chabad identity and his Yitzhar yeshiva are covered, with sources, at Yitzhak Ginsburgh and Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva. The Hilltop Youth come mainly from Religious Zionist and Kahanist circles rather than Chabad.

Netanyahu in later years

Netanyahu has repeatedly said the Rebbe inspired him. Chabad.org reports that after his 2009 UN speech he recalled a 1984 meeting at 770 Eastern Parkway, when he was ambassador to the UN. He said the Rebbe told him: "Remember that in a hall of perfect darkness, totally dark, if you light one small candle, its light will be seen from afar ... Your mission is to light a candle for truth and the Jewish people."

Editor's note: Chabad's relations with Netanyahu's later governments (2009–2021, 2022–) are not documented here from independent sources.

Critical perspectives

• Diaspora interference. In 1988 and 1990 American Jewish leaders across the denominations objected to a Brooklyn-based rebbe shaping Israeli coalitions. Seymour Reich of the Conference of Presidents called it "reprehensible for anyone in the Diaspora to interfere with the Israeli political system", without naming the Rebbe.
• Military service. Schindler's charge that the Rebbe rejected peace moves while his movement's yeshiva students were exempt from military service (above).
• Religious radicalism. Ravitzky argues that Chabad "clearly rejects such concepts as liberalism, pluralism, and universal human equality" while displaying "a dynamic and activist attitude" unmatched in Haredi Judaism.
• Anti-Zionist critique. Shahak and Mezvinsky (critical) set Chabad within "Jewish fundamentalism" alongside Gush Emunim and the National Religious Party.
• Critical scholarship: Eyes Upon the Land. Norton Mezvinsky and Joshua Kolb (critical) examine Eyes Upon the Land: The Territorial Integrity of Israel, a Chabad compilation of the Rebbe's statements edited by Eliyahu Touger. It was posted on the Chabad website in 1997 and published as a book in 2001. The authors argue that the Rebbe "distinguished clearly between the land of Israel and the state of Israel" but "modified to some extent the previous extreme anti-Zionism" of Chabad, putting "great emphasis upon the security of Jews and of the Holy Land". They write that after 1967 the Rebbe "emphasized the need for increased settlement by Jews in the biblical areas that were captured in that war, and argued vociferously against returning any captured land". In 1973 he asked why Israeli troops had not captured Damascus, and he sent an emissary to carry that message to Moshe Dayan. In their reading, Eyes Upon the Land urges settlement across "the entire Holy Land, which includes Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and the Golan", while claiming that displacing Arabs is unnecessary. They conclude that the book "remains the basic Chabad Lubavitch position on the Arab-Israeli conflict" and "reflect[s] the views of a substantial segment of the Jewish Orthodox religious right".
• Press TV article. In a 2024 article for Press TV, David Miller argued that Chabad, "an ultra-orthodox Zionist cult headquartered in New York with many adherents in the Israeli occupation forces, has been deeply complicit in the genocide in Gaza". He cited a "first Chabad House" set up in Beit Hanoun in December 2023, menorahs raised in Gaza by Chabad army rabbis, and UK Chabad fundraising for a reserve unit, and described the movement as "a supremacist, hate-mongering Zionist cult".

Editor's note: Mezvinsky and Kolb's article is cited from an OCR text of the journal pages, and quotations have been checked against it with OCR errors corrected. Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe (Princeton, 2010), Yitzhak Kraus, The Seventh (2007), David Berger and Rachel Elior discuss Chabad messianism and politics. Their specific passages on Israeli politics have not been checked against the texts and are not cited here.

See also

• Chabad messianism
• Yitzchak Ginsburgh
• Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva
• Hilltop Youth
• Kfar Chabad
• Chabad in occupied Palestine