The hopes of Europe�s six million Jews are centered on emigration. I was asked: �Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?� I replied, �No.� ... From the depths of the tragedy I want to save ... young people [for Palestine]. The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world ... Only the branch of the young shall survive. They have to accept it.
Chaim Weizmann, 1937
President of the World Zionist Organization
first President of the State of Israel
The danger for the Jewish People is because those who are irreligious and who are heretics are the leaders of the Jewish People. Therefore because of them the nations of the world are misled into hating Jews, so one of the greatest things to do would be to selflessly proclaim to the nations that the Zionists are not the representatives of the Jewish People, and that religious Jews have no connection with them. We should have had self-sacrifice to do this, but because of our many sins, people are frightened of public opinion, and if anyone should say these things about the Zionists, there will be religious leaders who will fight against them with all sorts of excuses.
Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, 1961
We were given the Holy Land by G-d in order to be able to study and practice the Torah without disturbance and to attain levels of holiness difficult to attain outside of the Holy Land. We abused the privilege and we were expelled. That is exactly what all Jews say in their prayers on every Jewish festival, "Umipnay chatoenu golinu mayartsaynu" - "Because of our sins we were expelled from our land".
We have been forsworn by G-d "not to enter the Holy Land as a body before the predestined time", "not to rebel against the nations", to be loyal citizens, not to do anything against the will of any nation or its honour, not to seek vengeance, discord, restitution or compensation; "not to leave exile ahead of time." On the contrary; we have to be humble and accept the yoke of exile. To violate the oaths would result in "your flesh will be made prey as the deer and the antelope in the forest," and the redemption will be delayed.
THE ROLE OF ZIONISM IN THE HOLOCAUST
Rabbi Gedalya Liebermann
True Torah Jews
