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Correspondence

January-August 1972

Exchange with Michael Tabor about Israel, Chabad, and Nature (1972)

Zionism

1. R. Lamm to Michael Tabor

1. R. Lamm to Michael Tabor (1972)

1. R. Lamm to Michael Tabor (Aug. 14, 1972)

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Exchange with Dr. Levinson about Israel and Messianism (1974)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I want to let you know how much I enjoyed your article in the May 3 Sh’ma. As one who protested the “prayer” designating the State of Israel מדינת ישראל ראשית צמיחת גאולתנו and was told “ninety-nine percent of all Torah scholars disagree with you,” it is encouraging to find one of your stature and learning among the one percent. The type of thinking expounded by Rabbi Goren is indeed frightening and all too prevalent, as I have discovered. Faith is cheap for those who believe the ambiguities of history are in the power of resolution and who fail to see that
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לכבוד ידידי יקירי הרב נחום לאם שליט"א ניו יורק שא ברכת ד' מציון וירושלים, קיבלתי מכתבך בכ"ה בתשרי ש"ז ועלתה בדעתי מחשבה: בזמנו פורסם ב"פנים אל פנים" דבריך על הנעשה במלחמת ששת הימים וכי אין לבאר ולהסביר מה שהתרחש בשכל ובטבע בלבד. הייתי מציע אולי תרחיב את הדיבור לבאר ולהסביר כל ענין הציונות, הרצון לקרב את הגאולה ע"י מעשים, גאולת הארץ ועלייה אליה מתוך מסירת נפש בכל הדורות ובייחוד מאחרי מלחמת העולם הראשונה, כוח העמידה של היישוב – בכל זה מתגלה יד ד' וכו'. אם הצעתי מתקבלת על דעתך אנא הודיעני. בברכת כ"ט בס"ד ובהערצה, ש"ז שרגאי
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Exchange with Ruth Weil about "The Ideology of the Neturei Karta" (1972)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I just got the latest issue of Tradition and read your article on the Ideology of the Neturei Karta. There are a few points I would like to raise and also ask you a few questions. I hope you do not mind! To begin with a general impression. To me your presentation of the ideology seems to be clothed in a sort of “sympathetic regret.” You agree, that fundamentally the basis of Neturei Karta stands on very shaky grounds. But one has a feeling “It could have been so nice, if it only could have been true.” Waiting in the Galuth anywhere as long as life was normal or bearable, then seek refuge in a more favourable place, until one day miraculously the Mashiach would appear and bring us all back to our land. We all have been brought up somehow on this idea, and may feel at times sort of nostalgic to realize our error. I also do think we never visualized this ingathering of our people in a concrete way, no one pondered much how this coming back would technically materialize, as it was to be miraculous. (Incidentally Chaim Hazaz once said something like: Jews always pray for the Mashiach to come, but deep in their hearts they pray, that the gentile should no be too bad towards them.) Convinced of our belief of the return to Eretz Israel, we rejected at a great majority Zionism at its very beginning, no one could conceive redemption initiated by the most secular and atheistic group of Jews. I am not challenging here the Neturei Karta, but would like to ask you, how can the Satmarer Rav pretend that the holocaust was a result and punishment of the Zionists challenging Hitler and declaring war on Germany? Hitler published his attitude towards the Jewish people and the Jews well before he came to power. If an affirmation is based on the very beginning on wrong facts, then of course all that happened later can be derived accordingly. Why do you find at times the logic of the Satmarer Rav piquant? (p. 51) The idea if God would have wanted our return to the old C…
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