Twenty years ago, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, the spiritual father of the "Youth of the Hill", outlined his vision of destroying Israel's democratic institutions and establishing Jewish dominance. After October 7, his vision appears to be coming true
A recent survey among Israeli Jews reveals a growing comfort with the idea of forcibly expelling Palestinians - both from Gaza and from Israel's borders. The survey also found that a significant minority support the mass killing of civilians in enemy cities captured by the Israeli army. These disturbing trends reflect the radicalization of religious Zionism since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the inability of secular Israeli Jews to articulate a vision that challenges Jewish supremacy.
Commissioned in March by Pennsylvania State University and conducted by Tamir Sorek for the Israeli polling firm Geocartography Knowledge Group, the survey surveyed a representative sample of 1,005 Israeli Jews. It asked a series of "uncomfortable" questions - topics typically avoided in mainstream Israeli surveys - about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The results found that 82% of respondents supported the expulsion of Gazans and 56% supported the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel. These figures marked a sharp increase from the 2003 survey, when support for such expulsion was 45% and 31%, respectively.
Religious interpretations play a role key role in shaping these views. Almost half (47%) of those surveyed agreed that "when capturing an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command - to kill all its inhabitants". Sixty-five percent said they believed in the existence of a modern incarnation of Amalek - the biblical enemy of the Israelites, whom God commands to be destroyed in Deuteronomy 25:19. Among these believers, 93% said that the command to wipe out the memory of Amalek remains relevant today.
This apocalyptic rhetoric has found fertile ground in religious Zionist circles, whose leaders have long advocated such extreme policies.
One of the most influential figures calling for such a policy is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, head of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. In January 2005, just before Israel demolished its settlements in Gaza, Ginzburg delivered a sermon near the Knesset in which he outlined a vision that was radically at odds with the secular Zionist ideal of a "Jewish and democratic state".
Ginzburg gained notoriety for his pamphlet "Baruch Hagever" ("Baruch the Man"), which praised Baruch Goldstein, a settler who in 1994 massacred 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, Ginzburg was placed under administrative arrest. He later endorsed a book that sanctioned the killing of women and children who were not Jews.
Unlike the early leaders of the Gush Emunim settlement movement, Ginsburg viewed any Palestinian presence in the Land of Israel as a desecration of God's name.
His 2005 sermon, now known as "It's Time to Crack the Nut," was a call to accept Jewish supremacy in the Land of Israel. It prepared his followers for mass violence and ethnic cleansing, policies that two decades later appear to be unfolding in Gaza. With Ginsburg's vision seemingly coming to fruition, it's worth returning to the ideological framework he proposed.
Born in the United States in 1944, Ginsburg began his rabbinical career in the Chabad movement. Although he still lives in Kfar Chabad, his greatest influence has been among the nationalist Haredi Jews within of the religious Zionist movement. His teachings combine Hasidic mysticism with messianic nationalism, drawing inspiration from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the Revisionist Zionist movement. His appeal extends even to some secular Israelis, attracted by his New Age-influenced ideas and his concept of “Jewish psychology“.
The most radical followers of Ginzburg's ideology are the so-called "hillbilly youth" - aggressive, young settlers from illegal outposts - who now form an armed militia responsible for frequent attacks and random killings in West Bank villages. Unlike the early leaders of the "Gush Emunim" settlement movement, who at least nominally accepted the idea that Palestinians could remain in the land as ger toshav (a halachic term for a non-Jew living in the land of Israel) without political rights, Ginzburg views any Palestinian presence in the land of Israel as a desecration of God's name.
In his sermon on "cracking the nuts," Ginzburg likens the state of Israel to a walnut with four shells that cover the fruit, the Jewish people. Drawing on Kabbalistic concepts, he describes these shells (kelipot) as spiritual impurities, remnants of creation that must be broken to release divine sparks. While some shells may contain traces of holiness, most are associated with evil—the sitra achra, which in Aramaic means "the other side".
Originally, Ginzburg argues, these shells were necessary for the development of the Jewish people. But now, he argues, they have become an obstacle. In order to achieve redemption, the shells must be broken. The first three—the media, the judiciary, and the institutions of government—are irreparably impure and must be destroyed. The fourth, the army, can be saved, but only if its moral foundations are cleansed.
The secular media, Ginzburg declares, "creates an atmosphere in which speaking in the name of the Torah is seen as an anachronism, primitiveness, and incongruity in all conversations that are essential to our lives." The legal and judicial system encourages "assimilation and the erasure of differences between Israel and the nations." It receives frequent assistance from the educational system, "which also seeks ... to impose these alien and confusing values on the youth." The Knesset and the government are pursuing interests alien to the Jewish people.
The cracking of these three shells is nearing its end, with the rapid pace of regime change stemming from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s overhaul of the judiciary, the crushing of the education system, and the widespread abandonment of the professional ethos in the Israeli media.
The nationalist “Haredi“ movement offers Israelis a religious counterfeit for the eradication of the indigenous Palestinian population. It offers a language and a plan of action for both observant and secular Israeli Jews.
The army is the most important and useful of these shells, Ginzburg argues. It is "soft and easily digestible". Its cracking will release the divine substance embedded within it in an apocalyptic process. Ginsburg argues that an ordinary Jew, who will rely on the primal desire for revenge - whom he calls the "nutcracker" - will instigate this process.
This man will not be bound by the castrating rules of the army, by those pagan values associated with the so-called "purity of weapons" that prevent soldiers from fulfilling the Talmudic commandment: "If someone comes to kill you, rise and kill him first". This same nutcracker will take revenge on the pagans, the Arabs of the land of Israel, without moral restraint. He will emulate Baruch Goldstein or the biblical Shimon and Levi, who massacred all the inhabitants of Shechem after the rape of their sister Dinah.
This is not an end-times prophecy. Back in 2005 Ginsburg formulated a clear vision for his followers to act on. But the plan required an opportunity to crack the kernel, a time when vengeance could be spontaneously and organically applied to the Gentiles, so that the divine substance could be released from the shell. At that moment, all that would remain would be the fruit—the people of Israel, ready to take on the time of salvation. At the moment of vengeance, Ginsburg believed, the avengers could also free themselves from the shackles of halakha, or Jewish religious law that restricts bloodshed.
The opportunity arose on October 7, 2023, after the massacre of civilians in Israel by Hamas. "The wicked actions of the people of Gaza underscore their Amalekite traits," he wrote in his booklet "Niflaot" on the weekly Torah portion a few weeks after the massacre. These traits, he adds, "require us to observe the commandment "Blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven, do not forget him" - complete destruction, not sifting", which means not checking who is innocent and who is guilty. Sacrificing the hostages, refusing any deal for their release, is a reasonable price to pay for what the rabbi, like Netanyahu, calls "complete victory".
The widespread acceptance by secular society of positions in support of ethnic cleansing and genocide is further evidence of the realization of Ginsburg's vision. This society has failed to articulate an alternative vision to messianic Zionism in the form of human rights for all. Thus, 69% of secular Israelis in the Pennsylvania survey support the expulsion of the inhabitants of Gaza, while 31% of them believe that the extermination of the inhabitants of Jericho by Joshua is a precedent that the IDF should adopt.
Ginsburg's achievements are indeed the result of breaking shells, even if those who broke them were in most cases not his true supporters. The Jewish media, the first shell, has always been mobilized in support of the state, but has carefully maintained an aura of professionalism. Since October 7, they have all but abandoned this posture. Many journalists have now abandoned critical reporting. Some have even joined the calls for revenge, expulsion, and extermination.
The judiciary once refused to openly declare Jewish supremacy in the Land of Israel and the right to expel, exterminate, or starve the enemies of the Jews, even while supporting the occupation. Ginsburg likened the judiciary to a stumbling block that "we must break ... with mockery and "contempt for the court." It seems that the second shell has also cracked, if not already completely removed.
Two months ago, Supreme Court Justice David Mintz rejected a petition by the human rights organization "Gisha" that sought to allow Israel to receive humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip. Mintz, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Dolev, claims that this is a "war of commandments", just like in the Torah. He has effectively allowed the denial of food, water, and medicine to 2 million Gazans. The decision, which was joined by Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit and Justice Noam Sohlberg, a resident of the settlement of Alon Shvut, is already taking its toll.
The education system, part of the second corps, has become a workplace where Jewish teachers who promote universal values risk being fired (Arab teachers have long been aware of this danger). Educational scholars point to the sharp change in the nationalist, ethnocentric direction of the curricula since the second intifada. It has led to growing support for expulsion and extermination, especially among those who have completed their education in the past 20 years.
Some 66% of people under the age of 40 support the expulsion of Palestinian citizens from Israel, and 58% want the army to follow the path set by the biblical Joshua at Jericho. The generational gap in political positions is not an uncommon phenomenon, but in Israel it has increased significantly since 2000.
What happened in the Knesset and the government also follows exactly the rabbi's prophecy. Ginzburg himself demanded: "We must eradicate the government - left or right - it must be overthrown. And when a new one is established, it must also be overthrown, and so on, until a government based on the Torah is established in the country". Ginsburg can boast a pretty godlike support after five elections in three and a half years.
With the fourth shell, the goal has also been practically achieved. It is hard to find a soldier who would refuse illegal orders, such as starving hundreds of thousands of people, creating death zones, or bombing densely populated residential areas. Only 9% of men under 40, the main demographic serving in the IDF in Gaza, rejected all the ideas of deportation and extermination presented to them.
Ginsburg has not missed the fundamental change in policy that is taking place in the current war. He was elated to learn that the IDF no longer considers the presence of civilians, who, in his words, "constitute a haven for terrorists," a reason not to act. Last September, he congratulated the heads of state on the "change for the better" that has occurred in their position.
Some believe that the shock and anxiety that gripped the Israeli public after October 7th is the only explanation for this radicalization. But the massacre seems to have only unleashed demons that had been nurtured for decades in the media and the legal and educational systems. Zionism, in addition to being a national movement, is also a movement of immigrant settlers seeking to displace the local population. Immigrant settler societies always face indiscriminate violent resistance from local groups. The pursuit of absolute and permanent security can lead to a quest to eliminate the resisting population. Therefore, almost any settlement project has the potential for ethnic cleansing and genocide, as indeed happened in North America in the 17th-19th centuries or in Namibia in the early 1900s.
Ginsburg is certainly not the cause of Israel’s moral collapse. But the nationalist “Haredi“ movement, of which Ginsburg is one of the most prominent leaders, offers Israelis a religious counterfeit for erasing their Palestinian roots. It provides a language and a blueprint for both observant and secular Israeli Jews seeking a resolution to the conflict that does not force them to give up the privileges granted by the Jewish supremacist regime.
The use of biblical language to justify war crimes is also nothing new to Zionism. Puritan settlers in America, Ireland, and elsewhere took advantage of the Bible and compared the native populations that opposed them to Amalekites and Canaanites. They also resorted to ethnic cleansing and genocide against the natives.
Note that this process is not deterministic. Although Messianic Zionism seeks to block decolonization in Israel and Palestine, it does not make it impossible. Opponents of Messianism have had several opportunities to choose a different path, but the price has been the need to transform themselves as Israelis and to dismantle the regime of Jewish supremacism. In the absence of readiness for these changes, the door remains open to the violent spirit of Ginsburg and his ilk.
If there is any chance of stopping the march toward a Spartan, exilic society, it lies in rejecting the idea of Jewish supremacy and Judaization, even in the version currently embraced by secular Zionism.
The alternative vision of suicidal Messianism is a true, equal partnership "from the river to the sea."
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Shei Hazkani is a professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Maryland. He is the author of "Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War" (2021).
Tamir Sorek is a professor in the Department of History at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of "The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad" (2020).
Shei Khazkani, Tamir Sorek - Haaretz
translation: Nick Iliev