Zvi Yehuda Kook

Zvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook was born in 1891 in Zaumel, also rendered Zoyma or Zimel, in the Kovno region of the Russian Empire, now in Lithuania.[1][2] He was the only son of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and studied Torah under his father from childhood.[2][3]

Kook grew up partly in Latvia, where he received traditional Jewish instruction and learned European languages. His background combined influences from Eastern Europe, Jerusalem’s Old Yishuv, and the New Yishuv centered in Jaffa.[9] His family moved to Jaffa in 1904. In 1906, at age fifteen, he went to Jerusalem to study at the Torat Haim yeshivah before returning to his father’s home in Jaffa.[1]

After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Kook was detained in Germany as a Russian subject. He was released and, near the end of 1915, joined his father in Switzerland, where he continued studying under him.[1] Yeshivat Merkaz Harav was founded in Jerusalem in the summer of 1923, and Kook became one of four principal faculty personalities alongside Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlap, Rabbi David Cohen—the Nazir—and Rabbi Yitzhak Arieli.[9] One account of the elder Kook’s spiritual legacy assigned Charlap the yeshiva’s spiritual headship, Zvi Yehuda responsibility for publishing his father’s halakhic and aggadic writings, Cohen responsibility for the philosophical works, and Shalom Natan Raanan-Kook the yeshiva’s administration.[9]

In 1929, Kook worked with his father to obtain immigration certificates and funding from the British Mandate authorities for rabbis, Hasidic leaders, yeshiva students, and householders, particularly from Russia and Lithuania. The effort reportedly involved approximately 3,000 individual files.[10] This work anticipated his later emphasis on immigration and settlement as religious acts.

Accounts differ on the chronology of Kook’s leadership at Merkaz Harav. My Jewish Learning states that he took over after his father’s death in 1935, while another biographical account dates his formal tenure as rosh yeshivah from 1952 until his death in 1982.[7][1] The difference may reflect distinct understandings of administrative involvement and formal institutional leadership.

As rosh yeshivah, Kook continued his father’s educational approach and taught students from different parts of Israeli society.[2] He published numerous articles, including halakhic responses to contemporary events, some of which were collected in Li-Netivot Yisrael in 1967.[2] He also devoted substantial effort to editing and publishing his father’s writings. Sefaria identifies him as the editor of Olat Reiyah, a commentary on the siddur and Haggadah, and Orot HaTeshuvah, a short work on repentance.[11]

Merkaz Harav became both an intellectual center for religious-Zionist thought and a major source of personnel for the settlement movement.[8] Its students and graduates became rabbis, teachers, communal leaders, and Israel Defense Forces commanders, and they established higher yeshivas, hesder yeshivas, religious high schools, and girls’ religious schools.[3] One Washington Institute analysis described these circles as viewing themselves as the vanguard of Israeli society and as guided by a sense of manifest destiny.[8]

The ideological center of Kook’s worldview was a messianic interpretation of contemporary Jewish history. He spent roughly fifty years teaching, expanding, interpreting, and publishing his father’s practical-messianic ideas, eventually applying them especially to the territories captured by Israel in 1967.[7] The State of Israel was understood in this framework as “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption,” while Israeli military victories were interpreted as divine intervention enabling settlement of the Land of Israel.[12] His students regarded the contemporary period as messianic and settlement in Judea and Samaria as participation in redemption.[13]

Settlement in the West Bank—the territory known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—was therefore understood not merely as a political policy but as participation in an unfolding redemptive process. Kook taught, on the basis of Nachmanides’ commentary, that dwelling in and conquering the Land of Israel were Torah commandments. He argued that a generation possessing the means to act had a religious duty to do so, by force if necessary.[14]

Kook and his followers also viewed the role of secular Jews in founding Israel as part of a divinely guided process. Secular Zionists, in this interpretation, fulfilled a spiritual mission that religious Zionists had been unable to initiate for logistical reasons but were obligated to join.[15] The pioneer, soldier, and settler could thus be understood as participants in a sacred historical process whether or not they accepted that interpretation. Kook regarded Yom Ha’atzmaut as marking a further step toward redemption and delivered sermons at Merkaz Harav on the holiday concerning the progress of that redemption.[14]

Commentators have distinguished Kook’s approach from that of his father. Abraham Isaac Kook combined religious nationalism with a broader universalism and a positive valuation of secular culture. The Washington Institute argues that Zvi Yehuda placed much less emphasis on these dimensions and focused primarily on religious nationalism.[8]

No event crystallized Kook’s influence more dramatically than the Six-Day War of June 1967. Three weeks before the fighting, he recalled his inability to celebrate the 1947 United Nations partition decision because it divided the Land of Israel. He asked: “where is our Hebron—have we forgotten her?! Where is our Shehem, our Jericho—where?! Have we forgotten them?!”[7] Israel subsequently captured East Jerusalem, Shechem, Jericho, and Hebron, and his followers regarded his words as prophetic.[7]

Rabbi Shlomo Goren later recounted that, after the capture of the Old City and the Western Wall, he sent his driver to summon Kook, identified in the account as the head of Mercaz HaRav. The account concludes: “On arriving to the Wall they cry.”[16]

Shortly after the war, Kook published a list of biblical passages intended to demonstrate that withdrawal from what he called “the eternal land of our forefathers” was illegal and unacceptable.[12] Thousands of young religious Jews, inspired by his leadership and trained at Merkaz Harav, campaigned against territorial compromise and established communities in Judea and Samaria.[5] The first major action attributed to this network was a settlement initiative at the Park Hotel in central Hebron during Passover 1968, which led to the establishment of Kiryat Arba and later Jewish settlement within Hebron.[17]

Kook’s students also established communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, including Gush Katif.[3] The movement’s religious claim held that the territories belonged to the Jewish people by divine decree and could not be handed over to foreign rule.[5] This became a defining conviction for broad segments of the post-1967 religious-Zionist movement.

Gush Emunim was founded on February 7, 1974, by Kook’s students, following the trauma of the Yom Kippur War and a meeting at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion.[5][7] The organization promoted Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.[6] A scholarly account identifies Kook’s theological disciples as the movement’s founders and states that they continued to dominate its leadership strata, while remaining a minority among its wider supporters.[6]

The movement’s founding slogan was: “The Land of Israel, for the people of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel.”[7] Its platform called for “a major spiritual reawakening in the Jewish people” to realize a Zionist vision whose source and goal were identified with the redemption of the Jewish people and the world.[7] The movement viewed the State of Israel as an instrument of redemption and practical efforts to establish Jewish sovereignty throughout the biblical land as a religious imperative.[7]

Kook’s relationship with settlement activism involved a tension between respect for the Israeli government and his commitment to settling the entire Land of Israel. An Israeli Ministry of Education text states that he tried to prevent clashes with security forces and preferred legal channels, but sometimes blessed settlers acting against government policy.[18]

That tension appeared during the Alon Moreh episode. When his students established a settlement nucleus without government authorization, Kook initially feared confrontation with soldiers and sought approval from the defense minister. When approval appeared unlikely, he declared: “If you do not give authorization—tomorrow I am going up with them.” He joined the group and, when soldiers arrived to evacuate it, held the fence and refused to leave, saying: “Here is the Land of Israel.”[18]

Rabbi Chaim Druckman was among Kook’s most prominent disciples. Druckman studied under him at Merkaz Harav, was sent by him to lead the Or Etzion yeshivah, and was credited with coining the name “Gush Emunim.”[19] Other students included Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, and Rabbi Dov Lior.[3] Kook also founded the El-Ami movement, which worked to bring Jews from Russia to the Land of Israel.[3]

Beyond his ideological influence, Kook was remembered for pastoral warmth alongside his uncompromising theological positions. An Israel Ministry of Education educational text describes him as continuing his father’s path of “love and faith,” applying these principles toward the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. It states that he loved every Jew as a Jew and believed that someone who had temporarily left religious observance could return and draw closer.[18]

One biographical account relates that an orphaned student whose mother could no longer support him considered leaving Merkaz Harav to find work. After learning that the family needed approximately 100 lira each month, Kook reportedly gave the student that sum monthly for five years, although his own salary was said to be 15 lira per month.[3] He was also strict about avoiding slander and instructed his students to spend half an hour each day studying Chafetz Chaim and Shmirat HaLashon, works devoted to proper speech.[3]

The same educational material presents his teaching as resting on love of the Torah of Israel, the people of Israel, and the Land of Israel.[3] These principles informed his teaching, pastoral care, and public activism.

Zvi Yehuda Kook died on March 9, 1982, corresponding to 14 Adar 5742, and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.[1] He left behind an institution, a movement, and an ideology that continued to influence Israeli society.

Merkaz Harav graduates became rabbis, teachers, IDF commanders, and communal leaders. They founded a network of higher yeshivas, hesder yeshivas combining Torah study with military service, religious high schools, and girls’ religious schools.[3] Communities established by his students in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza became central to later Israeli settlement politics.[3]

Gush Emunim became a leading organizational force behind Jewish settlement in territories captured in 1967. After Kook’s death, conflicts among its leaders intensified, while the Amana organization and the Yesha Council assumed much of its practical settlement and political work during the 1980s.[7]

Kook’s synthesis of religious observance, Jewish nationalism, and messianic expectation gave post-1967 religious Zionism a powerful theological framework. His adherents interpreted the State of Israel as “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption” and military victories as stages in a divine redemptive process.[12] In a Jewish Review of Books essay, Allan Nadler wrote that Kook’s followers hailed Ariel Sharon as “the father of the settlements” but later condemned him after the 2005 Gaza disengagement, which they viewed as reversing the course of redemption.[20]

Kook’s works remain in circulation in religious-Zionist circles. Li-Netivot Yisrael collects articles addressing contemporary events, while his editorial work on Olat Reiyah and Orot HaTeshuvah helped preserve his father’s teachings for later students.[2][11] Yehudah Mirsky, writing in the Jewish Review of Books, identified Kook as one of the major leaders of religious Zionism and noted that he interpreted the 1967 war as evidence of divine intervention in history.[4]

The chronology of Kook’s leadership at Merkaz Harav remains inconsistent across biographical accounts. My Jewish Learning states that he took over after his father’s death in 1935, while another account dates his formal tenure as rosh yeshivah from 1952.[7][1] This may reflect different definitions of institutional leadership rather than an irreconcilable account of his involvement.

The relationship between Kook’s ideology and his father’s original teachings is more substantively debated. Some moderate religious Zionists regarded the younger Kook’s interpretation as more radical than his father’s, while the Washington Institute argues that he deemphasized the elder Kook’s universalism and positive valuation of secular culture in favor of religious nationalism.[7][8] Yehudah Mirsky described Zvi Yehuda as “unable or unwilling to maintain his father’s exquisite dialectical balances” and concluded that “Rav Kook had essentialized the nation, and Zvi Yehudah had essentialized the state.”[20] These are interpretive assessments rather than settled biographical facts.

The view that armed conquest was a holy endeavor and that settlement and conquest were Torah commandments derived from Nachmanides reflects a particular halakhic interpretation rather than a universally accepted position in Jewish law.[14] The connection between Kook’s disciples, Gush Emunim, messianic theology, and territorial settlement is historically documented, but the strength and meaning of that relationship continue to be assessed differently across religious-Zionist and academic perspectives.[6]