Shmuel Sackett
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Shmuel (Seth) Sackett is a Religious Zionist leader. He co-founded both the Zo Artzeinu ("This [is] Our Land") and Manhigut Yehudit ("Jewish Leadership") political movements in Israel.
During the 1990s Zo Artzeinu opposed the Oslo Accords through civil disobedience.
Sackett was born in the United States and studied at Touro College in New York. He was educated in both Talmudic scholarship and secular academic subjects. He had been involved in Jewish youth work and in Jewish educational outreach to secular Jews, some of whom became baal teshuvas ("returnees to Judaism") under his tutelage. He worked in Wall Street's Financial District before making Aliyah to Israel and settling in the West Bank in 1990.
Sackett had been a member of the JDL in the 1970s and a loyal follower of Kach leader Rabbi Meir Kahane in the United States [1]. Sackett eventually followed Kahane to Israel where he joined Kach, and later, Kahane Chai [2]. He co-founded Zo Artzeinu with Moshe Feiglin in 1993.
While Sackett was a close friend of Kahane's son, Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, he disagreed with the younger Kahane's tactics. Sackett and Feiglin shared some of Meir Kahane's goals, such as creating a more Jewish and secure Israel (and, like Kahane, advocated population transfer as a potential solution to the growing Arab population in Israel and the Occupied territories), but wished to achieve them via nonviolent methods. This distinguished them from traditional Kahanism, which has long been associated with militancy and a tacit acceptance of, if not outright support for, violence.
In 1998, Sackett co-founded Manhigut Yehudit with long-time partner Moshe Feiglin. Sackett presently works as Manhigut's International Director. He has residences in both Woodmere, New York and Karnei Shomron, Israel. He is married, with six children.
