Ge'onei Aretz al ha-Mizrachi [Opinions of the "geniuses of the land" concerning the Mizrachi, i.e. the Religious Zionist movement]

(ZIONISM)

Zuckerman

(Jerusalem)

(Early 1930's)

This broadside is a collection of negative opinions concerning the Mizrachi movement, both rabbis of the past- R. Chaim Berlin (Moscow-Elizabethgrad-Jerusalem), R. Yechiel Michel Epstein (Novahrodok, author "Aruch ha-Shulchan"), R. Benzion Sternfeld (Bielsk) - and the contemporary R. Gavriel Ze'ev Margolis (Boston-New York) and the Rebbe of Lubavitch, Joseph Isaac Schneersohn. Though certainly open to interpretation, it appears that until the founding of the State in 1948, the Lubavitch movement was staunchly opposed to Zionism. The fifth and sixth Rebbes, Sholom Dov Baer and his son Joseph Isaac, are on record as being most outspoken in their opposition to Zionism. However, once the State of Israel became a fait accompli, the seventh Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, changed tactics, perhaps realizing that the new reality called for a different strategy