Neturei Karta: an Orthodox Jewish sect that doesn’t believe in the concept of a Jewish state of Israel

Rabbi Shimon Roth lives in Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim neighborhood — one of the city’s most religious neighborhoods.

The conservative atmosphere is visible. Men crowd the streets in a sea of black coats and hats, and Yiddish is commonly spoken. Signs are posted asking women to dress modestly. 

“We are here in occupied Jerusalem, the original capital of Palestine,” Roth explained from across a dining room table that was covered with a white lace cloth and a sheet of clear plastic, common in observant homes.

Roth only agreed to be interviewed with a male translator present. And he refused to make direct eye contact, based on a belief that he shouldn’t look at women other than his wife.

Roth is a part of Neturei Karta, a Haredisect that takes an anti-Zionist stance — meaning the group doesn’t believe in the concept of a Jewish state of Israel. Haredim (the plural of Haredi) are extremely religious and have a very strict commitment to Jewish law and custom.

Haredi translates to “trembling,” as in “trembling before God.”

Not all Haredim are anti-Zionist, and even those who are rarely show it in the same way as Neturei Karta. The group is known for demonstrating against Israel and in support of Palestine. Its members can be seen at protests carrying signs that say things like, “Judaism condemns the state of Israel and its atrocities.”

Roth explained that, for him, part of living in Israel as an anti-Zionist means not voting or running for office, not taking assistance from the government and openly supporting the return of all of Israel to Palestinians.

“The Zionists say that they act on our behalf. They took the name Israel, which is not theirs to have,” Roth said. “Our goal is to express [opposition] to the Zionists’ crimes.”

Zionism, the movement that advocates for a Jewish state, is almost always discussed in political terms. But it can also be fundamentally religious.

“Judaism is a covenant with God to uphold God’s Torah — to be subservient to God.”

According to Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesman for Neturei Karta in the United States, “Judaism is a covenant with God to uphold God’s Torah — to be subservient to God. Zionism is a transformation to nationalism.”

Weiss is famously known for having visited Iran to speak at a conference about the Holocaust alongside then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad and former KKK leader David Duke.

Weiss does not deny the Holocaust.

He said his grandparents and several aunts and uncles died in Auschwitz. The New York Times reported that he attended the conference to say that the Holocaust is being exploited to justify the Zionist state of Israel.

While many Zionists make the argument that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews, Weiss and Neturei Karta understand it very differently.

“It’s a materialist concept to have a piece of land — to be a nation like other nations. Totally contradictory to what Judaism is. That’s the basics,” Weiss explained.

The basics he’s referring to come from ancient history, and specifically the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. That temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE, which many understand as solidifying the Jewish diaspora.

“We are expressly forbidden — since the destruction of the temple 2,000 years ago — God told us that we should not reestablish a Jewish sovereignty,” Weiss said.

“[At] the time when we made the covenant, God said we should go into the Holy Land and make a temple … but He warned us if we’re not on that extremely high level of holiness, then we will be expelled from the Holy Land.”

But many Jews disagree, and find Neturei Karta’s efforts destructive.

“They don’t just go to demonstrations — they deny [that] Jews have a right to self determination,” said Rabbi Yaacov Behrman. He’s a public relations liaison for Chabad, a Haredi group headquartered in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in New York, and said he was speaking in his personal capacity.

“They deny Jews have a right to self govern, which is basically antisemitism,” Behrman added.

“They align themselves with Holocaust deniers. They align themselves with those that advocate for the destruction of the Jewish people. Their ideology lacks any religious or moral legitimacy.”

While Rabbi Weiss and Neturei Karta say the Jews were expelled from the land tnow called Israel and that it doesn’t belong to them, Rabbi Behrman says this misses a very important point.

“They don’t acknowledge that it’s divine providence that allowed Jews to create the state of Israel,” Behrman said. “The fact of the matter is the state exists and the fact of the matter is that Jews worldwide are safer because of this state. And if something happens to the state of Israel, it’s going to endanger Jews worldwide.”

To Weiss though, Zionism is heresy.

“It’s nationalism. It’s void of God,” Weiss said. “They call themselves a democracy. They proudly announced that you don’t have to be religious. They have gay rights parades in the middle of the center of Jerusalem. You don’t have to keep kosher. Judaism is not a democracy. It’s a religion.”

Neturei Karta does have a presence in Jerusalem — some even have families who lived there since before the creation of the state of Israel.

“I used to walk with my grandfather in the Old City of Jerusalem, and he used to tell me, ‘I lived here and here and here,’” Roth said. “As a child, he used to tell me the stories of his childhood from these streets — long before the Jewish state.”

Today, Roth and so many others look to those stories from the past, even if they have no agreement about the future.

Translation for this story was provided by Yair Leibel.

Related: Israel says ‘no’ to a 2-state solution