By Rabbi Josh Wander
Strip away the slogans, the party platforms, the blue-and-white lapel pins, and ask the uncomfortable question hiding underneath: can Judaism exist without Zionism?
Most Jews today flinch at the word Zionism. They hear “modern,” “secular,” “political,” maybe even “European nationalism with hummus.” That confusion is not accidental, but it is catastrophic. Zionism did not begin in Basel in 1897. It began with Lech Lecha.
When Avraham Avinu was told to leave his land, his birthplace, and his father’s house, he was not being invited on a spiritual gap year. He was being given geography as destiny. From that moment forward, Judaism ceased to be a floating philosophy and became a land-anchored covenant. The Torah does not hover. It lands.
Yaakov Fogelman ז״ל from the Old City once printed a bumper sticker that read, “God is a Religious Zionist!” It was meant half-tongue-in-cheek, but only half. Anyone who actually learns Torah quickly notices a recurring obsession: Eretz Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael. It’s everywhere. In the narratives. In the laws. In the punishments. In the promises. In the prayers we mumble three times a day, often without listening to ourselves.
Roughly a third of the 613 mitzvot only function in the Land of Israel. Not symbolically. Not metaphorically. Practically. Try keeping terumot, ma’asrot, shmittah, or yovel in Brooklyn. Judaism outside the Land is, by definition, a reduced-function version of itself. Necessary at times. Never ideal.
Exile, in the Torah, is not a lifestyle choice. It is a punishment. A curse with an expiration date. We ask for redemption constantly—kibbutz galuyot, return of sovereignty, restoration of Jerusalem—then turn around and build ever more elaborate lives designed to avoid the answer to those prayers. That cognitive dissonance has become normalized, even sanctified.
At this point someone will object: But half the Jewish people haven’t returned. And what about the great rabbis who remained in exile? And what about anti-Zionist Jews?
Good questions. Necessary ones. But none of them refute the core issue.
Every Jew faithful to Torah—without exception—believes that God promised the Land of Israel to the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Every one of them believes that exile will end and return will occur. This is not a political position. It is axiomatic. It is as foundational as belief in Sinai. Anyone who denies this is either not following the Torah or is being dishonest, which is also a Torah violation.
This includes those who loudly call themselves anti-Zionist. Even Neturei Karta believes in return to the Land. They disagree on how and when, not whether. The argument has never been about destination. It has always been about timing and agency.
And here is where the real confusion begins.
If exile is a punishment, and exile means dispersion across the globe, and the gates of the Land have been open—legally, politically, physically—for nearly eighty years, then a disturbing question emerges: what, exactly, is preventing the exile from ending?
The answer is not theology. It is psychology.
Exile does something insidious. It teaches people to confuse survival with normalcy, comfort with legitimacy, and habit with holiness. Over generations, punishment gets rebranded as preference. Galut becomes “home.” Return becomes “extremism.” Faith becomes abstract enough to avoid action.
This is why so many Orthodox Jews now say, “I’m not a Zionist.” What they usually mean is: I don’t like secular Israeli politics, or I’m uncomfortable with the messiness of Jewish sovereignty, or I’ve built a life that would be expensive to dismantle. None of those statements have anything to do with Torah.
Judaism without Zionism is Judaism without its spine. It can walk for a while. It can even dance. But it cannot stand upright forever.
The only question left—the only honest one—is not if the Jewish people will return home, but why, when given the opportunity, so many choose not to. That question cuts far deeper than politics. It forces us to examine fear, inertia, and the seductive ease of exile.
And that examination is long overdue.