When an Anti-Zionist Rabbi Visits Israel

Thousands of Hasidim arrived at the Brooklyn home of the Satmar grand rabbi, Rabbi Yekusiel Leib Teitelbaum, on Jan. 31 before he departed for his second visit as grand rabbi to Israel. Officially, the visit was to celebrate the bris (Jewish male circumcision ceremony) of his grandson, the son of his son who serves as a rabbi in Israel. But from the balcony of his home, the grand rabbi presented his followers with several other goals for his trip. He defined the visit as an effort “whose essence is to help the Torah institutions in the Holy Land that do not receive funding from the Zionist state.” One of the synagogue managers who officiated at the event added, “Our rabbi is going to strengthen the God-fearing institutions and people in Israel, who have not knelt to Baal and have not prostrated to the golden calf of Zionism. There’s a reason they hate us [in Israel] and don’t want the rabbi to come.”