It was a cold Wednesday morning when I found myself tucked into a corner of a trendy cafe, meeting with a professor from my university in Australia. I had recently graduated and wished to discuss my plans before my imminent move to Israel.
In fact, Israel—more specifically, our political differences regarding it—served to provide underlying tension in our discussion.
Unafraid of political disagreement, we dived into conversation on Israeli politics almost immediately. Explaining the constituencies active in the Israeli political landscape, I mentioned the community with which I identify: the knitted-kippah-wearing “Religious Zionists,” known in Israel as Dati Leumi.
As nationalism was his area of research, the professor inquired further. I defined the community as a revolutionary one—one that saw religious significance in the modern-day State of Israel. A movement that resisted the insular instincts of the ultra-Orthodox in favor of a religious and national renaissance through the restoration of sovereignty in Israel.
With pride, I boasted of how the community is overrepresented on the front lines of protecting the state; how, when secular society floundered, Religious Zionism picked up the torch of pioneering spirit; how it, more than any other group, instills Israel with forward momentum, a movement towards destiny so rare in an increasingly lethargic West.
His reaction to this description was visibly uncomfortable, and I can imagine why. His associations with religious nationalism were with the Baath movement in Iraq and Syria, Christian nationalists in the United States and Turkish nationalists under Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—regimes known for brutality and intolerance.
Religious nationalism has an unsavoury reputation and for good reason. The combination of religious zealotry with ideological fervor is a recipe for abominable outcomes. It runs contrary to the sacred divide that characterises the West: the separation of church and state.
In vain, I searched for a characteristic that distinguished my community from other religious nationalists, to no avail.
Religious nationalism is often characterized by a desire for territorial growth, reliant on historical claims. While I believe, in the case of Israel, the claims to the areas of Judea and Samaria are legitimate, this is not characteristically different from other movements.
It would be cold comfort for someone like my professor, who supports the Palestinian cause, that Religious Zionists do not aspire to world domination, but only to the historic lands of the Jews, in which Palestinians currently reside.
The violence and discrimination against the “other” that religious nationalism often emboldens are present in Religious Zionism. While a majority of Religious Zionists do not engage in violence and many have strong relationships with minorities, I cannot claim that there is no normalization of violence in certain circles of the Religious Zionist community. The political philosophy of the Jewish supremacist figure Meir Kahane has returned to the Religious Zionist zeitgeist.
Ultimately, our conversation concluded amicably, and we parted ways. Yet the question remained with me. To borrow a phrase from the Passover meal: What makes this religious nationalism different from all other religious nationalisms?
The answer is a single word: Messianism.
That word may frighten more than it comforts. Few things can justify violence as effectively as the idea of utopia, and messianic tones are far from uncommon in religious nationalist movements.
Yet in other movements, utopia is particularist—a goal of national ascendancy. For Turkey, the messianic vision is a return to Ottoman borders; for Russia, an empire stretching into Eastern Europe, claiming hegemony over all Slavic peoples. Religious Zionism, by contrast, has a universalist vision—one in which the return of Jews to their land leads to a world in which, in the words of Isaiah: “They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
This is a radically different idea of redemption. To reach this idyllic future, no armies must march, no surrounding nations must be subjugated, and no existing peoples cleansed. Instead, peace emerges through restraint and ethics. As it says in Deuteronomy: “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession.”
This vision suggests that the messianic era will arrive not through domination, but through good deeds and moral integrity.
I am far from the first to point out this distinction. Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (1865–1935), the foremost ideological figure of the Religious Zionist movement—akin to Theodor Herzl or Martin Luther King Jr. in stature—drew this line clearly.
In the first issue of his journal Ha-Peles, HaRav Kook—as he was called—published an essay titled Te’udat Yisrael U-Leumiyuto (Israel’s Mission and Nationhood). In it, he claimed that Religious Zionism is not a movement driven by the passions of nationalist fervour, but by the intellect. It acknowledges the universal ethical mission with which its nationalism is tasked. Without that ethical core, he warned, Zionism would descend into what he called nationalismus—a hollow pretext for xenophobia and violence.
So, what are the implications of this ethical messianism? It may be comforting to think that the Religious Zionist community is founded on altruistic ideals. But it does not erase the problems of religious nationalism. I cannot claim that all members of the community embody the universalism of its luminaries.
And yet, because this idea lies at the movement’s core, it keeps the center from drifting toward the extremes. There will always be radicals, but no Religious Zionist can stand and publicly deny belief in peace, in the sanctity of life, or in the vision that Israel should be, in Isaiah’s words: “A light unto the nations.”
Why? Because of the text.
Religious Zionism is a textual movement, grounded in a literary canon that emphasizes ethics. Its battles are fought not by hooligans in the streets, but by communal leaders on the pages of journals and newspapers.
Kook transcribed a doctrine of universal love—not only love for secular Zionists and their contributions toward the ingathering of Israel, but love for the beauty in all people, including the non-religious and even the anti-religious.
Even in the writings of his more zealous son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda—known for his messianic fervour and occasional tensions with Israel’s secular authorities—there is reflected a deep and foundational love of humanity.
This ethical messianism, codified in the writings of these figures, acts as an edifice upon which leaders rise to push back against extremism and preserve the moral centre.
It was on such a foundation that Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Rabbi Yehuda Amital, headmasters of one of Religious Zionism’s most prestigious institutions, stood to challenge their community during the moral crises of Lebanon and the First Intifada. It is the same foundation upon which future leaders will stand to confront the extremists of the next generation.
Religious Zionism is faced with the challenges of all ideologies: the lure of extremism, tribalism and hatred of the other. And yet, it stands firm, fortified by solid foundations and timeless ideals.
I am proud of my community. I am proud of the sacrifices we make to protect our country. I am proud of the energy and purpose we bring to the nation. I am proud that the torch of pioneering Zionism—that bold movement to reinvent the Jew for modernity—is still held aloft after falling from secular Israel’s hand.
But most of all, I am proud of our mission: to bring the world into a greater awareness of the other by example.
