ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 discusses how Yissachar Shlomo Teichtel (1885–1945), the head of the rabbinical court (av bet din) and chief rabbi of Pishtian in Slovakia, transformed his opinions during the interwar period and the Holocaust regarding the theological role of Zionism in the messianic drama. In my discussion of Teichtel, I show how he departed from the anti-Zionist ideology of Hungarian radical ultra-Orthodoxy by comparing his views to those of Chaim Elazar Shapira (“the Munkacser Rebbe,” 1871–1937), the leader of the Orthodox community in Hungary. Teichtel was a follower of the Munkacser Rebbe and initially supported his anti-Zionist approach. However, he changed his position following the rise of the pro-Nazi state in Slovakia and its persecution of the Jews. In 1942 he began to write the book Em HaBanim Semekhah (A Happy Mother of Children), in which he refuted his rebbe’s position and offered a justification for Zionism.
