R’ Aaron of Belz: How Anti-Zionist Lies Prevented Jews From Escaping the Holocaust
The Charedi world commonly stresses the role of “Zionism” (sic) in enabling the destruction of European Jewry via gas chambers and crematoria. Of course, by “Zionist” they really [ought to] mean specific, wicked individuals with political power and influence, no connection to the Torah idea, Heaven forfend.
The true lesson here, of course, is the problem with politics, not with Zionism (in competition with the state, correctly understood)!
But hey. By that standard, here is a tidbit concerning the anti-Zionist part in preventing Jewish escape from the same. (For more on this, see here and here.)
From a long article in Mishpacha Magazine:
The grandson of the Rebbe’s initial host in Tel Aviv, Rav Nosson Ortner, remembered how the Rebbe reacted when he got his first view of the religious life there. “He said, ‘They tricked us when they sent messages from Eretz Yisrael that the state of Yiddishkeit is terrible (norah ve’ayom). As a result, I didn’t recommend that people move here. Now that we’ve arrived, I see that there are in fact chadarim and yeshivos here.’”
Do you see what he says? This is not about the quality, even, but sheer existence! These are his words: “Now that we’ve arrived, I see that there are in fact chadarim and yeshivos here”.
We can safely ignore the ludicrous excuse in the immediately following paragraph:
Rav Nosson Ortner, who later served as rav of Lod, was troubled by this statement, and asked Rav Yehoshua Mendel Ehrenberg (the head of the Tel Aviv Beth Din and a prominent Belzer chassid), what happened to the ruach hakodesh that tzaddikim have. Rav Ehrenberg explained that since there was a Divine gezeirah of destruction and loss, Hashem effected a state of hester panim — and this lack of clarity about the spiritual state of Eretz Yisrael was part of it.
Sure, and Yaacov was kept from knowing the truth about Yosef, etc. Not the point. This is about those who lied to the diaspora and to themselves about the religious condition of Eretz Hakodesh, and still do so to this very day! As Kedushas Tzion writers pithily call them, “Meraglim“!
By the way, the Belzer Rebbe also felt that the Holocaust nullified any “3 Oaths” concern about mass Aliyah.
Quoting from Mishpacha there again:
A survivor sought the Rebbe’s advice about whether he should move to Israel or to another country. The Rebbe responded, “I already stated in the Bochnia ghetto that as long as the nations of the world let the Jewish People be, they had a zechus that they adhered to the Will of Hashem in regard to the Jewish People in exile. But now that they are systematically exterminating us, they have lost all their rights to retain the Jewish People under their control.”