Biographical speech by Senior Rabbi Moshe Dov Beck
Rabbi Moshe Dov Beck, a leading rabbi in the Orthodox Jewish anti-Zionist movement in the United States, who has written many volumes on the issue of Zionism and is a well-known public speaker on the subject. He was born in Hungary and survived the Holocaust by hiding for a year in a bunker, while his mother and many relatives were killed. After the war he moved to Jerusalem and married into a family of Palestinian Jews who had lived there for many generations. Later he left the Holy Land due to the rise of the Zionist state.
My name is Moshe Dov Beck and I was born on May 17, '34 in Budapest, Hungary.
We lived at 8 Lujza Street – myself, my brother and my sister. Our mother was taken to Auschwitz. Our father escaped to Romania. The other extended family members (my grandmother, aunts, and 25 other Jews) succeeded with G-d's help in hiding in a bunker at 25 Dobozi Street. It was our uncle's house, a small, weak house, hidden from the public eye. There we survived the danger. G-d watched over us.
Every second, we lived in fear that we might be discovered. The roof over our heads only protected us from rain, not from the bullets and bombs that were flying from both sides, from the Russians and the Germans fighting in Hungary. We had only a little bit of bread to keep us alive. There was almost no other food. And even that little bread was extremely difficult to obtain. Once someone left the bunker and never returned.
In February 1945, G-d helped and the Russians reached our neighborhood; we were liberated. The war and gunfire continued for a while. After the war, the few surviving members of our large family came together. My mother was no longer alive, and my father had reached Palestine. So our family decided to go and join him in Palestine. In '46 we left Hungary and in '48 we reached Palestine. We children began attending rabbinical school in Bnei Brak.
In about the year '59 I got married in Jerusalem. There I got to know the highly esteemed Jews of Neturei Karta, led by Rabbi Amram Blau, and I entered the war against Zionism. In the year '70 I left Palestine, because I understood the false and cruel nature of Zionism, and I settled in America.
I am pained to see that the Zionists, who at the time of the Holocaust sought to reap political benefits from our suffering, now put on a show of grief and pity - again for their own benefit.
The unfortunate truth is that the Zionist policy during the Holocaust was that only Jewish bloodshed on a massive scale could help them achieve their state after the war. They provoked anti-Semitism and sabotaged rescue efforts, all for their political goals. They pursue the same tactic to this day: they cause the blood of Jews and non-Jews to be spilled, and they benefit politically.
It is also painful to see our suffering being used to justify the oppression of others.
We are Jews who believe in G-d. We believe that everything G-d sends us is for our good. In all circumstances we are faithful to Him. One of the principles of our faith is acceptance of the yoke of exile. G-d sent us into exile and we accept that, as Jews have done in all generations. We believe in and wait only for the redemption of G-d, without any human intervention. G-d alone will bring about this redemption in a miraculous way.
The Zionist philosophy is to create a sovereign state for Jews. Even if this is done in a religious style, it is fundamentally heretical. Thus "religious Zionism" is a contradiction in terms; it is a destruction of Jewish faith.
Neturei Karta is not a political party, just authentic Jews who still believe in their original faith.
We pray that all human suffering come to an end, and that we should merit soon to see the day when the Almighty will reveal His glorious majesty and renew the minds of all mankind, so that all nations will worship Him together. In the words of the prayerbook, "May they all become one group to do Your will wholeheartedly." And at that time the Almighty Himself will gather us together and lead us to the Holy Land peacefully, soon in our days, amen.
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