Your confusion is extremely understandable and it is really hard to get a goo viewpoint into this exact issue from basically anywhere outside of the Haredi communities themselves. What makes it even harder is that there is not lock-step uniformity among “ultra-orthodox” Jews either in Palestine or outside. Traditionally, all Haredi Jews were anti-Zionist since they believed in the Jewish religion which, itself, is an anti-Zionist faith: some of the biggest offenses you can commit in the Jewish religion are (1) try to establish a Jewish state in the holy land (or even enter the holy land) through any means other than literally waiting for the literal God to literally come back to earth and literally resurrect the King David, thereby re-establishing God’s kingdom on earth, (2) stealing anything from anyone, and (3) killing anybody. This is why Jewish communities rejected Zionism for 1800 years even though they knew what it was.
HOWEVER, since the founding of the state, there have been massive campaigns to pressure the traditional religious adherents to adopt Zionism, including creation of new religious schools that are based on a Zionist version of Judaism. Making it even harder to distinguish from the outside - several communities of “ultra-orthodox” Jews in Palestine are comprised of former non-Haredi Jews who have adopted more traditional lifestyles while retaining their core Zionism. Add on top of that the general prejudices, racism, reactionism, etc. that already find fertile ground in fundamentalist communities of all monotheist religions, and you end up with a lot of people who look the same, dress the same, and talk the same taking radically different sides of the Zionism issue.
However, the traditional Haredi communities who, for example, serve in the Knesset have often been anti-Zionist and, according to them, the reason they serve in the Knesset protect the traditional Jewish religious practice from the secular state that they fear. This has allowed them to ally with (or at least not oppose) genocidal, secular Zionists when they are doing ethnic cleansing in Palestinian territories because the primary concern of these ministers is letting them shut down their neighborhoods on the sabbath or prevent women form praying next to the men at the Western Wall, etc.
There have always been Jews there - the expulsions weren’t total and people moved all over the place for thousands of years. There has always (post Roman expulsion) been a tension within Jewish communities about what the Bible/Talmud say about Jews going to the holy land. It all boils down to the idea that, according to the Jewish religion, the Jews were expelled from the holy land by God because they were not acting in accordance with his commandments. And according to that theology, once Jews and non-Jews live according to biblical law (613 commandments for Jews, 7 for everyone else) then god will return and re-establish the kingdom with the resurrected David. It was about proximity to the temple site, so to this day, traditional religious Jews will not set foot on the Temple Mount even though the state of Israel opens it to them. The Jewish community that existed in the holy land for thousands of years was, to the extent it wasn’t secular, Jews that wanted to live as closely as possible to the 613 commandments. There is actually an ongoing debate within the Hardi community whether this is even permitted or not. But what is absolutely clear and was universally the consensus prior to 1880 was that the state itself should not be “Jewish” (one of the 7 commandments applicable to non-Jews is to have civil governments that give Jews basic rights and Jews are, in turn, commanded to follow the laws of these non-Jewish governments). So the religious Jewish communities that remained in the holy land took very seriously their obligation to follow the laws of God which included not trying to establish a “Jewish State” but instead to create the conditions for god to return and re-establish the kingdom. That’s why most Jews who lived in Palestine prior to the 1890s were anti-Zionist.
Also, you have to be careful putting the word “modern” in there because the “modern orthodox” movement was and is a 20th century
movement of Orthodox Jews who impose a re-interpretation of the texts that is explicitly Zionist (just to make it more confusing).
Your confusion is extremely understandable and it is really hard to get a goo viewpoint into this exact issue from basically anywhere outside of the Haredi communities themselves. What makes it even harder is that there is not lock-step uniformity among “ultra-orthodox” Jews either in Palestine or outside. Traditionally, all Haredi Jews were anti-Zionist since they believed in the Jewish religion which, itself, is an anti-Zionist faith: some of the biggest offenses you can commit in the Jewish religion are (1) try to establish a Jewish state in the holy land (or even enter the holy land) through any means other than literally waiting for the literal God to literally come back to earth and literally resurrect the King David, thereby re-establishing God’s kingdom on earth, (2) stealing anything from anyone, and (3) killing anybody. This is why Jewish communities rejected Zionism for 1800 years even though they knew what it was. HOWEVER, since the founding of the state, there have been massive campaigns to pressure the traditional religious adherents to adopt Zionism, including creation of new religious schools that are based on a Zionist version of Judaism. Making it even harder to distinguish from the outside - several communities of “ultra-orthodox” Jews in Palestine are comprised of former non-Haredi Jews who have adopted more traditional lifestyles while retaining their core Zionism. Add on top of that the general prejudices, racism, reactionism, etc. that already find fertile ground in fundamentalist communities of all monotheist religions, and you end up with a lot of people who look the same, dress the same, and talk the same taking radically different sides of the Zionism issue. However, the traditional Haredi communities who, for example, serve in the Knesset have often been anti-Zionist and, according to them, the reason they serve in the Knesset protect the traditional Jewish religious practice from the secular state that they fear. This has allowed them to ally with (or at least not oppose) genocidal, secular Zionists when they are doing ethnic cleansing in Palestinian territories because the primary concern of these ministers is letting them shut down their neighborhoods on the sabbath or prevent women form praying next to the men at the Western Wall, etc.
Thank you for helping me understand this all much better.
Honest question, isn’t "modern"ultra Orthodox judaism kind of…weird to think that? I mean there were jews in Israel during the crusades.
There have always been Jews there - the expulsions weren’t total and people moved all over the place for thousands of years. There has always (post Roman expulsion) been a tension within Jewish communities about what the Bible/Talmud say about Jews going to the holy land. It all boils down to the idea that, according to the Jewish religion, the Jews were expelled from the holy land by God because they were not acting in accordance with his commandments. And according to that theology, once Jews and non-Jews live according to biblical law (613 commandments for Jews, 7 for everyone else) then god will return and re-establish the kingdom with the resurrected David. It was about proximity to the temple site, so to this day, traditional religious Jews will not set foot on the Temple Mount even though the state of Israel opens it to them. The Jewish community that existed in the holy land for thousands of years was, to the extent it wasn’t secular, Jews that wanted to live as closely as possible to the 613 commandments. There is actually an ongoing debate within the Hardi community whether this is even permitted or not. But what is absolutely clear and was universally the consensus prior to 1880 was that the state itself should not be “Jewish” (one of the 7 commandments applicable to non-Jews is to have civil governments that give Jews basic rights and Jews are, in turn, commanded to follow the laws of these non-Jewish governments). So the religious Jewish communities that remained in the holy land took very seriously their obligation to follow the laws of God which included not trying to establish a “Jewish State” but instead to create the conditions for god to return and re-establish the kingdom. That’s why most Jews who lived in Palestine prior to the 1890s were anti-Zionist.
Also, you have to be careful putting the word “modern” in there because the “modern orthodox” movement was and is a 20th century movement of Orthodox Jews who impose a re-interpretation of the texts that is explicitly Zionist (just to make it more confusing).
Insert kylo ren more meme here.
Good answer!