ABSTRACT
Rabbi Wolpo is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and one of the most fundamentalist rabbis in contemporary Israel. He is famous for, among other things, his controversial political and religious statements, which are close to the opinions of Rabbi Kahane. In his books he openly declared the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, as the Messiah. He also devoted several of his books to criticism of Rabbi Elazar Shach, one of the most prominent opponents of the Chabad movement. In recent years, Wolpo has garnered media attention with his sharp attacks on Israeli politicians such as Ariel Sharon or Ehud Olmert, in relation to the eviction of Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip. Wolpo also criticizes the current Israeli Zionism on the grounds that he sees it as illegitimate. Paradoxically these approaches bring him closer to the attitudes held by the group Neturei Karta, but from the completely opposite pole (a prime example of how completely different radical political positions can converge with each other). Wolpo considers the current Israeli regime as ‘treacherous’ because it is returning the Land of Israel to the Palestinians; according to him, the Palestinians are the ‘Nazis of our time’. In 2008 Rabbi Wolpo founded a new radical political party called Eretz Israel Shelanu, which allied itself with the Jewish National Front in the National Union Alliance. The Alliance won four seats in the Knesset, one of which was taken by Wolpo's party.
