Mizrachi (Religious Zionism)

Mizrachi
Founder	Yitzchak Yaacov Reines
Founded	1902
Split from	United Religious Front
Merged into	United Religious Front National Religious Party
Ideology	Religious Zionism
Most MKs	4 (1949)
Election symbol
ב

The Mizrachi (Hebrew: תנועת הַמִזְרָחִי‎, Tnuat HaMizrahi, an acronym for Merkaz Ruhani lit. Religious centre) is the name of the religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilnius at a world conference of religious Zionists called by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. Bnei Akiva, which was founded in 1929, is the youth movement associated with Mizrachi. Both Mizrachi and the Bnei Akiva youth movement are still international movements.

Mizrachi believes that the Torah should be at the centre of Zionism and also sees Jewish nationalism as a means of achieving religious objectives. The Mizrachi Party was the first official religious Zionist party and founded the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Israel and pushed for laws enforcing kashrut and the observance of the sabbath in the workplace. It also played a role prior to the creation of the state of Israel, building a network of religious schools that exist to this day, and took part in the 1951 elections.

During the interwar period, the Mizrachi party was represented in the kehilla councils as well as in the municipal councils and in the Polish Sejm and Senate, e.g. by the Vilnius Chief Rabbi Yitzkak Rubinstein (1888-1945), Mizrachi senator (1922-1930, 1938-1939) and deputy (1930-1935), and by Rabbi Simon Federbusch, Sejm member from 1922 till 1927.

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