Religious Zionism

Religious Zionism (Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת דָּתִית‎, translit. Tziyonut Datit, or דָּתִי לְאוּמִּי‎ Dati Leumi "National Religious", or כִּיפָּה סְרוּגָה‎ Kippah seruga, literally "knitted skullcap") is an ideology that combines Zionism and observant Judaism.

Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Religious Zionists were mainly observant Jews who supported Zionist efforts to build a Jewish state in Palestine, or the Land of Israel.

After the Six-Day War and the capture of the West Bank, a territory referred to in Jewish terms as Judea and Samaria, right-wing components of the Religious Zionist movement integrated nationalist revindication and evolved into Neo-Zionism. Their ideology revolves around three pillars: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel, and the Torah of Israel.

In 1862, German Orthodox Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer published his tractate Derishat Zion, positing that the salvation of the Jews, promised by the Prophets, can come about only by self-help. Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner was another prominent rabbi who supported Zionism. The main ideologue of modern Religious Zionism was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who justified Zionism according to Jewish law and urged young religious Jews to support efforts to settle the land, and the secular Labour Zionists to give more consideration to Judaism. Kook saw Zionism as a part of a divine scheme which would result in the resettlement of the Jewish people in its homeland. This would bring salvation ("Geula") to Jews, and then to the entire world. After world harmony is achieved by the refoundation of the Jewish homeland, the Messiah will come. Although this has not yet happened, Kook emphasized that it would take time, and that the ultimate redemption happens in stages, often not apparent while happening. In 1924, when Kook became the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine, he tried to reconcile Zionism with Orthodox Judaism.

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