Gush Emunim
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Gush Emunim (Hebrew: גוש אמונים, Block [of the] faithful) was an Israeli political movement. The movement sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, though it was not formally established as an organization until 1974, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. It encouraged Jewish settlement of land they believe God has allotted for Jews.
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[edit] Political affiliations
Gush Emunim was closely associated with, and highly influential in, the Mafdal - National Religious Party (NRP), the party which is identified with religious Zionism. These days they refer to themselves —and are referred to by the Israeli media as— Ne'emanei Eretz Yisrael נאמני ארץ ישראל (Hebrew: "Those who are loyal/faithful to the land of Israel").
[edit] History
In 1968, a group of future Gush Emunim members led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger founded the settlement Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron. In 1974, following the shock of the Yom Kippur War, the organization was founded more formally, by students of the younger Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, who remained its leader until his death in 1981. In late 1976, an affiliated group named Garin Elon Moreh, led by Rabbi Menachem Felix and Benjamin (Beni) Katzover, attempted to establish a settlement on the ruins of the Sebastia train station dating from the Ottoman period. The Israeli government did not approve and the group that was removed from the site would later found the settlement of Elon Moreh adjacent to Nablus/Shechem.
[edit] Ideology
Gush Emunim beliefs are based heavily on the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Kook and his son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. The two rabbis taught that secular Zionists, through their conquests of Eretz Israel, had unwittingly brought about the beginning of the "messianic age", which would end in the coming of the Jewish messiah. Gush Emunim supporters believe that the coming of the messiah can be hastened through Jewish settlement on land they believe God has allotted to the Jewish people as outlined in the Hebrew Bible.
[edit] See also
- Israeli settlements
- Mafdal
- Moledet
- Orthodox Judaism
- Tzvi Yehuda Kook
- Gush Emunim Underground
- Moshe Levinger
[edit] External links
- For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel by Ian Lustick, 1988.
