Neturei Karta

From Powerbase
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Neturei Karta: anti-Zionist Haredi sect founded in Jerusalem in 1938, with communities in New York and London

Neturei Karta

Logo Neturei Karta logo.png
Logo of Neturei Karta International
Type Haredi religious sect
Founded 1938
Founder(s) Amram Blau; Aharon Katzenellenbogen
Location Jerusalem; Monsey and Brooklyn, New York; Stamford Hill, London; Salford
Area served "Israel", the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom
Key people Moshe Hirsch; Yisroel Dovid Weiss; Ahron Cohen; Elhanan Beck; Haim Sofer
Website nkusa.org

Neturei Karta ("guardians of the city" in Aramaic) is a small anti-Zionist Haredi sect, founded in Jerusalem in 1938, which opposes the existence of the state of "Israel" on religious grounds.[1] It is known for its contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Yasser Arafat, its attendance at Iran's 2006 Holocaust conference and its presence, carrying Palestinian flags, at pro-Palestinian marches in New York and London. Other Haredi bodies, including the Satmar Hasidim, have repeatedly condemned it.

Origins

The New York Times wrote that Neturei Karta was "Created in 1938 in what was then Palestine", and named Rabbi Aharon Katzenelbogen as its founder.[1] The Forward named Amram Blau as the founder, and wrote that the group split from Agudat Israel "when the previously anti-Zionist group began to work with the state of Israel".[2] Aviezer Ravitzky writes that "a group of radicals, led by Rabbi Amram Blau and Rabbi Aaron Katzenellenbogen, split off from the Edah Haredit to form a separate group that later became the Neturei Karta (Guardians of the Walls). In 1945 this group obtained a majority in the Council of the Edah Haredit".[3] He places Neturei Karta, the Satmar Hasidim and the Edah Haredit together as holders of the "radical anti-Zionist position", and describes "a split within the Neturei Karta itself", with "the most militant faction" being the one "that expresses affinity for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)".[3]

Beliefs

According to The New York Times, members "believe that according to the Torah, Jews were exiled from Israel because they sinned and that God has forbidden the formation of a Jewish state until the Messiah arrives". The paper quoted the group's website: "Neturei Karta opposes the so-called 'State of Israel' not because it operates secularly, but because the entire concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish Law".[1] Shaul Magid notes "an important disagreement" between the Satmar rebbe Joel Teitelbaum and Neturei Karta, which "often engage in protests, sometimes violent, against the state" and "engage in deliberations with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Arab enemies of Israel such as Iran".[4]

Size and communities

In 2010 The New York Times put its membership at "several thousand" in "Israel", the United States and Canada.[1] The Forward wrote in 2023 that most members live in Jerusalem, with communities elsewhere "including Brooklyn".[2] In 2007 the Times described it as "a small anti-Zionist group with a foothold" in Monsey, Rockland County.[5] Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University told the paper that it "represented a small fringe, but were very good at gaining publicity".[1]

PLO and Arafat

In 1980 The Jewish Chronicle quoted the group's leader, Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, as saying it "would accept any rule, even that of the PLO, which would assure us of our rights to live and live as Jews", and that "the Neturei Karta were more at war with the State of Israel than the PLO".[6] Hirsch, a Brooklyn-born son-in-law of Katzenelbogen, became a confidant of Arafat in the 1980s, while Arafat was in exile in Tunis. He greeted Arafat at Jericho in 1994 and was soon afterwards chosen as his adviser on Jewish affairs; in 2004 he led a Neturei Karta delegation that prayed for Arafat at the French hospital where he lay in a coma.[1] The Forward wrote that another leader, Yisroel Dovid Weiss, "posed for photos at the 2004 vigil around Yasser Arafat's deathbed in Paris", and that The New York Times had reported that Arafat gave "$30,000 each month" to Hirsch.[2] On Hirsch's death in May 2010, a Palestinian delegation led by Hatem Abdel Qader, adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Mahmoud Abbas, visited Mea Shearim to pay its respects,[7] and Abdel Qader was quoted as saying: "We consider Rabbi Hirsch a part of the Palestinian people."[1] The Jewish Chronicle's obituary said that he had emigrated to Israel "or 'occupied Palestine' as he called it".[8]

Iran

Weiss, described in 2007 as Neturei Karta's "spokesman and assistant director", had met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "at least twice" before the Iranian government's Holocaust conference in Tehran in December 2006, where he and four other members "received a warm reception" and posed for photographs with Ahmadinejad. He told The New York Times: "We went to Iran because we had to let the world know, especially the Arab world and the Muslim world, that we are not their enemies", wearing a Palestinian flag pin reading "A Jew Not a Zionist".[5] The delegates attended under the banner "Jews United Against Zionism";[9] other attendees included the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.[2] The Forward also reported Neturei Karta meetings with Hezbollah leaders, and the arrest by the Shin Bet in 2014 of a member, Yitzchak Bergil, on a charge of spying for Iran.[2] In 2024 the Daily Mail reported that Neturei Karta leaders had travelled to Iran for the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi.[10] In 2009 The Jewish Chronicle wrote: "Members of Neturei Karta have actively befriended people like Arafat and Ahmadinejad."[11]

Protests and Palestinian flags

The Forward reported in November 2023 that Neturei Karta "has been taking part in pro-Palestinian rallies and marches for decades", that members "routinely burn the Israeli flag at demonstrations, especially on Purim", and that they had "laid a wreath on the grave of Hezbollah's founder". In January 2023 members met Palestinian Islamic Jihad figures in Jenin, wearing kaffiyehs.[2] In New York, members rallied at Brooklyn Borough Hall in January 2024,[12] and an AFP photograph from a Nakba Day protest in Bay Ridge on 10 May 2025 shows demonstrators "with the group Neturei Karta" marching "with Palestinian flags".[13] In January 2007 The Jewish Chronicle reported a counter-protest in New York, with chants of "Nazi traitors! Go back to Iran!", against "around 50 Neturei Karta members shouting anti-Zionist slogans".[14]

Condemnations

In April 2002 an umbrella body of Satmar, Bobov, Belz, Vizhnitz, Munkacs, Kiryas Joel and other communities condemned a "small group of individuals [known generally as Neturei Karta]" for joining a rally in Washington.[15] After the 2006 Tehran conference the Satmar leaders of Congregation Yetev Lev in Brooklyn called the delegates "reckless outcasts",[9][16] and The Jewish Chronicle reported that Satmar "took the unusual step of issuing a press release to denounce Neturei Karta".[17] Rabbi Hertz Frankel of Satmar told the paper that "Whatever the Satmars' view of Israel, he said, they would never line up publicly with Israel's enemies."[18] Agudath Israel of America said that "all they accomplish is to offer succor and support to people who eagerly wish to do grave harm to Jews".[19] On 12 November 2023 the Satmar rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum called Neturei Karta's activities a "terrible chilul Hashem" (desecration of God's name).[20][21]

United Kingdom

Early contacts

In January 1991 The Jewish Chronicle reported that when Moshe Hirsch arrived in London, "one of the first visitors to wish him well was head of the PLO delegation in Britain, Mr Afif Safieh".[22] In 2003 the paper's Simon Rocker wrote of "Jewish students in the Midlands who recently encountered members of the Neturei Karta sect spouting their venomous anti-Zionism from a Palestinian platform".[23] In 2006 a Jewish Chronicle writer referred to "the burning of an Israeli flag outside the Simon Marks school in London",[24] and the columnist Geoffrey Alderman wrote of the group's "unqualified support for the late warmonger, Yasir Arafat; and its charming, new-found friendship with an Iranian government".[25]

Ahron Cohen, Salford

Rabbi Ahron Cohen of Salford, described by The Sunday Times as "a leading member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement", attended the December 2006 Tehran conference "along with four American rabbis from the same sect", on a trip "paid for by the Iranian foreign ministry"; the delegates had two meetings with Ahmadinejad. Cohen ended his speech with a prayer "that the underlying cause of strife and bloodshed in the Middle East, namely the state known as Israel, be totally and peacefully dissolved". On his return he said: "There is no question that there was a Holocaust and gas chambers", but added that the perpetrator "will never succeed if the victim did not deserve it in one way or another". The Sunday Times reported that his house had been pelted with 1,000 eggs the previous year.[26] The Salford-based Machzikei Ha'dass then circulated a notice saying that those who associate with enemies of Judaism "should be excluded from our Kehillos (communities) and be denied entry to all our constituent shuls (synagogues) and institutions"; Cohen, then 83, was under police protection.[27] The Jewish Chronicle reported that he had been "effectively excommunicated by Anglo-Jewry".[28]

Stamford Hill and the London marches

The Daily Mail reported in 2024 that Neturei Karta had "hundreds living in London", based at a synagogue in Alkham Road, Stamford Hill. A group of about ten had walked from the synagogue to Parliament Square on the Sabbath for nine months to join pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including the march of 6 July 2024. The paper named Rabbi Elhanan Beck, born in Jerusalem in 1967, as the group's leader.[10] The Forward published a photograph of Neturei Karta members at a "March For Palestine" in London in October 2023.[2] Neturei Karta's own website reported that Beck, "spokesman of Neturei Karta UK", addressed the press at the "Hands Around Parliament for Palestine" protest on 18 July 2024.[29]

Haim Sofer

Haim (or Chaim) Sofer is a London-based Neturei Karta rabbi. Islam21c describes him as "an Orthodox Rabbi who resides in the UK" and "a member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement", born in Palestine to parents born in Iraq.[30] In November 2023 Jordan News, citing Khaberni, called him "the dean of the Neturei Karta movement in Britain"; it reported that he called on Russia to send an army to Gaza and described Benjamin Netanyahu as "an infidel".[31] In January 2024 he told Anadolu Agency that "Israeli" officials responsible for war crimes in Gaza should be "judged and jailed" in The Hague. He said that he had been forced to leave Palestine by the "Zionist government", which had handed him a prison sentence, and called for the "peacefully dismantling" of the state of "Israel".[32] In 2024 the Daily Mail described him as a "high-profile Neturei Karta activist" from the Alkham Road synagogue, and quoted him: "The United States is a colony of the Zionist state completely controlled by the Zionists. And so is Great Britain", and "Hamas are absolutely not anti-Semitic. They are anti-Zionists."[10]

See also

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Dennis Hevesi, "Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, Anti-Zionist, Dies at 86", The New York Times, 5 May 2010.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Mira Fox, "Who exactly is Neturei Karta, the Orthodox sect protesting Israel?", The Forward, 22 November 2023.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, University of Chicago Press, 1996 (full-text search of the Internet Archive copy; page not recorded).
  4. ↑ Shaul Magid, Jewish Anti-Zionism as Political Theology: The Major Writings of Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, University of California Press, 2026, pp. 23–24 n. 83, 156 n. 85, 157, 161 n. 108, 174.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Fernanda Santos, "New York Rabbi Finds Friends in Iran and Enemies at Home", The New York Times, 15 January 2007.
  6. ↑ The Jewish Chronicle, 27 June 1980, p. 8.
  7. ↑ "Arafat adviser Rabbi Moshe Hirsch dies", JTA, 3 May 2010.
  8. ↑ The Jewish Chronicle, 11 June 2010, p. 24.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Satmars: Jews at Iran Holocaust conference 'reckless outcasts'", Haaretz, 16 December 2006.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Eliana Silver and Sabrina Miller, "Woman who fled Jewish Orthodox sect where 'impure' women are beaten and married to strangers at 16 reveals her ordeal - as its British members attend pro-Palestinian marches", Daily Mail, 2 August 2024.
  11. ↑ The Jewish Chronicle, 24 July 2009, p. 13.
  12. ↑ Mary Frost, "Jewish sect rallies for Palestinian rights at Brooklyn Borough Hall", Brooklyn Eagle, 26 January 2024.
  13. ↑ Madison Swart, photograph caption, Nakba Day protest, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images, 10 May 2025.
  14. ↑ "Neturei Karta targeted", The Jewish Chronicle, 12 January 2007, p. 20.
  15. ↑ "Satmar And Others Condemn Hareidi PLO-Sympathizers", Israel National News, 28 April 2002.
  16. ↑ "Satmar court slams Neturei Karta", Ynet, December 2006.
  17. ↑ The Jewish Chronicle, 22 December 2006, p. 28.
  18. ↑ "Israel must still go, says renegade 'rabbi'", The Jewish Chronicle, 22 December 2006, p. 3.
  19. ↑ "Chassidic, Orthodox Groups Condemn Neturei Karta Iran Visit", Israel National News, 16 December 2006.
  20. ↑ Yehuda Dov, "Satmar Rebbe Of Williamsburg Slams Neturei Karta: 'Terrible Chilul Hashem'", VINnews, 13 November 2023.
  21. ↑ Zvika Klein, "'Terrible desecration of God's name:' Satmar rebbe slams anti-Zionists", The Jerusalem Post, 13 November 2023.
  22. ↑ "End of Israel is nigh says extremist rabbi", The Jewish Chronicle, 11 January 1991, p. 9.
  23. ↑ Simon Rocker, The Jewish Chronicle, 28 March 2003, p. 31.
  24. ↑ The Jewish Chronicle, 5 May 2006, p. 28.
  25. ↑ Geoffrey Alderman, The Jewish Chronicle, 14 April 2006, p. 25.
  26. ↑ Maurice Chittenden, "Rabbi claims Holocaust dead deserved it", The Sunday Times, 17 December 2006.
  27. ↑ "Rabbi not welcome at synagogues", Manchester Evening News, 27 December 2006.
  28. ↑ "Neturei Karta man still defends Iran: Community throws out Shoah denier", The Jewish Chronicle, 22 December 2006, p. 1.
  29. ↑ "'Hands Around Parliament for Palestine' Protest in London", Neturei Karta International, 18 July 2024.
  30. ↑ "Rabbi Haim Sofer", author profile, Islam21c, accessed 26 October 2026.
  31. ↑ "Jewish Rabbi: Netanyahu is an Infidel", Jordan News, 29 November 2023.
  32. ↑ Burak Bir, "Israeli officials should be 'judged and jailed' in The Hague for Gaza crimes: Jewish rabbi", Anadolu Agency, 9 January 2024.
Retrieved from "https://powerbase.info/index.php?title=Neturei_Karta&oldid=297822"