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Rabbi Dov Lando: It would have been better if the Arabs were in power
On Feb 7, 2025, Rabbi Eliav Miller, from the organization Lev Shomea, visited Rabbi Dov Lando, Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka, Bnei Brak, and asked some questions about the current situation with yeshiva bochurim facing forced conscription into the IDF. Rabbi Miller: But people say it’s only the founders of the Zionist idea who were bad,…
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Rabbi Dan Segal shlita, the Mashgiach, on the Three Oaths and a practical way to end the state
In reaction to the Merkaz Harav terror attack on March 6, 2008, in which 8 students were killed: The secular leaders of the State of Israel are placing us in danger. Here there is a greater danger than any other place, because things are more serious here due to the holiness of Eretz Yisroel. They…
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Rabbi Wein’s view of the anti-Zionist movement
In honor of Rabbi Berel Wein zt”l, who passed away last month at the age of 91, I’m publishing a letter he wrote to a friend of mine in 2011, with my response at the time. 5/19/2011 Rabbi Wein is in town and I sent him an email about how I have come to identify…
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Comments on Tony Judt’s Article
In an effort to explore the one-state solution and what various scholars have written about it in the past, today we’ll comment on an essay by the late Tony Judt of NYU, published in the New York Review of Books on October 23, 2003. The essay has been credited with bringing the one-state solution into…
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The Three Oaths in History: A Timeline
Zionism was the most successful violation of the oaths in our history, but it wasn’t the first. In fact, there were many times when our people tried to invade Eretz Yisroel at the wrong time, end their subjugation to the other nations inside or outside of Eretz Yisroel, or build the Third Temple. Not all…
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The Origins of the Dome of the Rock: How an Early Muslim Ruler Gave Permission to Build the Temple
The Maharam Chagiz (Rabbi Moshe Chagiz, 1671-1750) in his work Eileh Masei, page 18, tells a story that he heard from the “experts on Ottoman history.” In the year 637 CE, when Caliph Omar Al-Khitab[1] conquered Jerusalem, he built his palace there. He noticed that a large heap of rubbish lay near his palace. Every…
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Claim: True, the Three Oaths prohibit a state, but once the state is already here, it’s permitted
First, what would be the logic behind this? Violating the oaths of exile is akin to heresy: it is an implicit denial that Hashem is the one to decide when the bring about the redemption. If someone is a heretic once, are they allowed to continue being one? The Brisker Rav said, “Two things are…
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Peaceful aliyah with permission from the ruling power – revisiting the Satmar Rebbe’s proofs
The first of the Three Oaths is that the Jewish people must not go up to Eretz Yisroel “as a wall.” In Vayoel Moshe, Maamar Shalosh Shevuos Siman 10, the Satmar Rebbe lists 3 possibilities for what this might mean: 1) The immigration of a large group, all together 2) The immigration of the majority…
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Does the Ramban on Yishuv Eretz Yisroel mean that he would support today’s state?
Claim: The Ramban in Sefer Hamitzvos says that we are obligated to conquer Eretz Yisroel in every generation. This clearly shows that he did not pasken like the Three Oaths. Fact: The Ramban quotes Chazal’s statement that Dovid Hamelech was wrong to conquer Syria before completing the conquest of Eretz Yisroel, and then writes, “So…
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Did the Agudah in 1937 permit what happened in 1948?
The following letter was published in the journal Kedushas Tzion, Elul Tishrei 5785 (2024). I would like to comment on the sefer Achakeh Lo by Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen of New York. The sefer, which is written in Hebrew and English, comes to support the opinion of the Vayoel Moshe and brings many ideas that are…
I Will Await Him 