Asking our Jewish community...?

You met a person of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. (In Israel, it's just Orthodox, but in America, it's ultra-Orthodox.) They are anti-Zionist because they believe only the messiah can restore Israel. I disagree with them. Many Jews do. And he definitely wasn't carrying a Torah in his pocket, I promise you that.

WADR, you will pardon me for being a bit skeptical. While there are indeed a tiny minority of anti-Zionist religious Jews (let's say 0.00001 percent), there are certain things here that just don't fit.

This Palestine but, for example. The following is the statement of a Muslim Arab:

“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”

“We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag”.

“When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out”.

This declaration by a true "Palestinian" should have some significance for a sincerely neutral observer. Indeed, there is no such a thing like a Palestinian people, or a Palestinian culture, or a Palestinian language, or a Palestinian history. There has never been any Palestinian state, neither any Palestinian archaeological find nor coinage. The present-day "Palestinians" are an Arab people, with Arab culture, Arabic language and Arab history. They have their own Arab states from where they came into the Land of Israel about one century ago to benefit from the Jewish immigration. That is the historical truth. They were Jordanians (another recent British invention, as there has never been any people known as "Jordanians"), and after the Six-Day War in which Israel utterly defeated the coalition of nine Arab states and took legitimate possession of Judea and Samaria, the Arab dwellers in those regions underwent a kind of anthropological miracle and discovered that they were Palestinians - something they did not know the day before.

In any event, the viewpoint you have presented is rejected by all in the Jewish community except a tiny lunatic fringe.

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i must say that i have never once met an orthodox or otherwise rabbi that would say such things. only the temple can be rebuilt by instruction of the "messiah" (whatever that word really means, it didn't translate well in the first place), but the state of Israel has always existed, whether the jews were in exile or not. "Palestine" is a name that the Romans made up, by the way. The Romans referred to everyone that lived in Judea (their actual name for that Roman Province when they were the ruling power there) as Philistines (barbarians) because the indigenous people there were tribal and lacked central government - something the "civilized" Romans could not imagine for a moment!

Well, if we gonna just keep waiting for a Messiah, well....jews might never have a state of their own, so....what i think that rabbi is really afraid of is that jews will stop wandering and that will put an end to 1/2 of the philosophy that he followed all his life, because a lot of it was probably based on adaptation to the "current home". In other words, home is here, what is there to search for? etc.

That said, I think he right that there s a lot of corruption in Israel. Now, I wouldn't simply judge them as "masonic types" etc. because i simply don't know (but Im sure he does). But it seems like there s a lot of putting money in my own pocket going on and with this rate of gread Im just gonna have to say this rabbi is not so wrong after all....

There's idiots in every group..

A torah in his pocket? Wow.. That must have been a sight, since most VOLUMES of Ha Torah weigh over 10lbs..

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The core reason why Jews view the land as holy is due to the special status that the Hebrew Bible gives it with regard to Jewish religious observance, the fact that Jerusalem was the site of the Temple, and most of all, the fact that the Hebrew Bible refers to it as a divine gift.

Jewish kingdoms and states existed intermittently in the region for over a millennium. Archeological evidence shows that the kingdoms of King David and King Solomon existed.[citation needed]

Under foreign conquests, Jewish presence in the province dwindled due to forced mass expulsions and persecution by Romans, Christians and Muslims. In particular, the failure of the Bar Kochba Revolt against the Roman Empire resulted in widescale expulsion of Jews. It was at this time that the Romans changed the name Syria Palaestina to the geographic area, in an attempt to erase Jewish ties to the land, even changing Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but with little success as it had had with changing Judea to Palestine. The Mishnah and Jerusalem Talmud, two of Judaism's most important religious texts, were composed in the region during this period.

You mean, he clarified for you **his** position. This is, indeed, the position of a few ultra-Orthodox groups within Judaism, and they're entitled to their opinion. But it's not shared by the vast majority of Jews.

My guess is that he had a siddur (prayer book) or Chumash (first five books of the Bible) in his pocket.

What do you think of this, O son of those-who-would-stir-thing-up?

I think its appauling. To hear jews that dont practice. But then again im not a jew but a lawyer so no one cares what I think unless their in trouble.

This Rabbi should not spend energy on these things and turn his focus to God who manages all.

That's an interesting stance. I may have read that somewhere as well.

But as I am not Jewish, I daresay I am not qualified to answer.

Some Jews believe that, and others do not. This is not the forum for a theological discussion.