Abraham Isaac Kook (1864, Grīva, Latvia - 1935) has immigrant in Palestine in 1904. In 1921, He becomes the 1st chief rabbi Ashkénaze of the “Jewish National Hearth” in Palestine agent, station lately created. It was a rabbi known for his talmudic competences. In 1924, it creates Yeshiva Merkaz Harav.

Its acceptance of the station of chief rabbi, par excellence posts “Zionist”, watch his agreement with the principles of the religious Zionism. To its station, it will use of its prestige to reinforce the current religious Zionist within the orthodoxe Judaïsme, in Palestine agent and in the world.

In 1912, orthodoxe the “modern ones” (except the Zionists Mizrahi) and the ultra-orthodoxe had created together the party Agoudat Israel, very hostile with the Sionisme. In 1948, after the creation of Israel, practically all orthodoxe the “modern ones” became more or less favorable to the Sionisme. This evolution is partly the fruit of the events (Shoa, creation of Israel), but it is also for a good portion due to the engagement and the prestige of the rav Kook.

However, the attitude of the rav Kook with regard to the Mizrahi in particular and of the Zionism in general is not free from criticisms. The rav Kook was particularly anxious influence of the laic Jews on the future of the Judaism, and doubted the capacity of Mizrahi to answer it.

Beyond its capacity to legitimate the Zionism within a orthodoxe Judaism with the very reticent departure, the rav Kook also will direct the ideology of the religious Zionism in a Messianic direction. For Kook, the redemption of the Jewish people is moving, and the Zionists, even atheistic, are carrying bits of this redemption, sometimes with their defending body. It is the reconstitution of an autonomous Jewish life in Palestine which allows and announces the return of the Jews of their exile, then their return to the religious practice, and in the long term the arrival of the Messie. The Zionism is thus a tool in the diagram of God for the advent of Messianic times.

The influence of the rav Kook on the development of the religious Zionism is quadruple:

• It reinforced adhesion with the Zionism in the orthodoxe Jewish currents (but not at the ultra-orthodoxe Haredim).
• It directed it in a Messianic direction, posing the return of the Messiah like consequence of the Zionism.
• It bound the ground of Israel and the safety religious (and not only national) of the Jewish people.
• By the two last evolutions, it posed the ideological bases of the later evolution and ultra-nationalist of a large fraction of the religious Zionism, even if itself is not directly responsible for this interpretation.

Bonds

• Zionism
• History of the Zionism
• religious Zionism