When Messianics Dream “For Real”.

Realism and Purism in Messianic Movements in Israel in 2025.

While messianism undoubtedly represents the most serious internal threat to Israel’s future, it nevertheless comes in many forms. Perle Nicolle-Hasid and Sylvaine Bulle examine its various currents here, starting with a fundamental divergence: the question of the relationship to realized Zionism, i.e., to the state. But whether it is the realists seeking to make the state a tool of messianism, or the purists detaching themselves from it to live according to ancestral Israel, the present of redemption overwhelms the horizon of Zionism.

 

 

“You can grab some popcorn, sit on the bench at the end of the settlement and watch redemption [happen].”^[1]

The violent “flag march” of May 26, 2025, during which young religious Zionists ransacked Palestinian-owned shops and attacked Palestinians in the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as the growing pressure exerted by certain ultra-nationalist groups on the government coalition to reoccupy Gaza, place the link between religious nationalism and violence at the heart of Israeli current affairs. In the media in particular, religious Zionists are now labeled as “far right,” “supremacists,” or “violent settlers.” However, this labeling does not cover the heterogeneity of collective or individual actors. The terms “religious Zionists” or “messianics” do not capture the full range of practices, as some break away and become autonomous, while others instrumentalize both state Zionism and the Israeli religious system. What we are discussing here are new religious and political configurations, sources of tension inherent in the Israeli model, because messianism weighs heavily on the future of Israel and Palestine, including Gaza. We focus on two complementary but sometimes contradictory forces that represent a significant and growing portion of religious Zionists whose goal is the fulfillment of biblical prophecies about the return of the Jews to a mythological land of Israel. First, we will discuss the “integrationist” and realistic religious Zionists, who are the most numerous among the hundreds of thousands of current settlers.^[2] Secondly, we will look at a particular fringe group, in contrast to the first: the Hilltop Youth, who have broken with religious and political Zionism and claim an authentic Jewish identity free from any diasporic influence.

Religious Zionism or messianism?

It should be remembered that religious Zionism remains a minority version of Zionism. For those who identify with it, the advent of the State of Israel is imagined as the dawn of a new era, human or divine, based on the ontological annulment of the Jewish exile and the promise of the emergence of an “old and new” Jewish identity. The religious Zionism of the Kook Rabbis^[3], father and son, remained dominant in the Israeli landscape until 2005, the major year of “disengagement,” that is, the forced evacuation of settlers from Gaza by the Israeli army. The Kook rabbis’ approach allowed religious Zionism to theorize the relationship between religion and the state, insofar as the latter appears both as a political construct and as the vehicle and embodiment of Jewish redemption. This spiritual fervor coupled with political commitment is found today in certain conceptions of military sacrifice, settlement in the land of Israel, and other practices of civic devotion.

This syncretic vision has characterized several generations of Israeli religious Zionists, who have served in the most dangerous military units, been involved in social institutions, and participated in most government coalitions, including with left-wing parties, until the 1990s. Since the 1970s, religious Zionist fervor has been embodied in the settlement project in the West Bank (and in Gaza until 2005)—a project that the Labor Party supported for security reasons—through which the “return” to the ancestral lands of the West Bank (particularly in the cities of Hebron, Nablus, and Jericho) and East Jerusalem. This “return” is seen as an essential prerequisite for the Jewish salvation that the “ideological settler”^[4] movement intends to take into its own hands. For the latter, the Israeli settlement movement is indeed a “practical application” of religious Zionist messianism, increasingly carried out in collusion with the Israeli authorities, who accept the seizure of West Bank land.

The goal of some of the ideological settlers is to take control of the Israeli state system in order to consolidate their territorial hold on the West Bank and impose the irreversible nature of their “on-the-ground” messianism.

However, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the dismantling of the settlements there constituted a major break in this messianic exaltation and were perceived by religious Zionists as political betrayal and a spiritual crisis. Here we see the ambivalence that affects their relationship with the State of Israel: on the one hand, religious Zionism sanctifies it as “the pedestal of the divine throne in this world ,” but on the other, it protests against the limitations of its modern state form, insofar as it hinders the possibility of expanding across the entire biblical land. This protest can go as far as the desire to break away from state institutions, as we shall see in the case of the Hilltop Youth. But for most ideological settlers, the ambivalence is resolved by an increasingly vocal demand: to gain control of the Israeli state system in order to consolidate their territorial hold on the West Bank and impose the irreversible nature of their “on-the-ground” messianism. In the current period, these ideological settlers have allied themselves with the government coalition, particularly with the far-right and religious right-wing factions that comprise it. Since the massacres of October 7, followed by the war in Gaza, some of these uninhibited settlers no longer hide their intention to institutionalize the occupation of Palestine, from the Jordan River to Gaza, emptied of its occupants. Many of them are also campaigning for Israeli sovereignty over the current site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the location of the Temple.^[5] Finally, they are creating conflict in their relationship with Israeli democratic institutions by supporting plans to overhaul the powers of the Supreme Court.

The offensive realistic messianics

It is in this context that we find the majority of religious Zionists. They can be called “realistic messianics.” Often from urban religious-Zionist elites and educated by the institutions of the religious kibbutz movement, they have taken control of the traditional religious-Zionist parties (Katzman, 2020). Critical of the media, the liberal left, and the judicial system, and opposed to secular institutions in their current forms, they want to advance the project of annexation and occupation of the West Bank. This is achieved through their growing influence and political-religious integration within the state, the government coalition, and the Israeli Parliament. It is a kind of “state-sponsored” messianism that seeks to make the state more docile, as evidenced by the repeal of the disengagement law they achieved in 2023.^[7] To this end, they have been able to take advantage of the omnipresence in Parliament of an exclusive nationalism promoted by the Zionist-religious formation of Bezalel Smotrich, allied with that of Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzama Yehudit) and the far-right Noam party. They also benefit from the influence of the “Bibist” right (Likud and affiliates) and the shift in Israeli society towards an increasingly marked rejection of the liberal left.

“The state is not sacred, it is a secular tool that we can use, it is not a religious object.”^[8]

These settlers, strengthened by their strategy of integration into political and parliamentary life, are planning, strategizing, and investing in the hope of making the state compatible with their vision. They have acquired an almost irreversible legitimacy, especially as they create real estate companies and militant organizations^[9] that fuel the conquest of the West Bank. They are gradually taking over Palestinian land, particularly in the Hebron region in the south of the West Bank. Their desire for expansion is combined with the aggressiveness of other, younger settlers, who are stepping up attacks on Palestinian villages and land, as well as the destruction of livestock and crops. These increasingly numerous and violent^[10] offensives rarely result in intervention by the army.

Bolstered by their strategy of integration into political and parliamentary life, they plan, strategize, and invest in the hope of making the state compatible with their vision: a kind of “state-sponsored” messianism that seeks to make the state more docile.

But it would be simplistic to equate ideological settlers with the violence of some of their members and the provocative statements of rabbis without authority. Indeed, the transformations of messianism have also led to a more discreet diversification of spiritualities and religious-Zionist political practices, which are moving away from the precepts of the Kook rabbis and their “state” messianism. While a significant proportion of “integrationist” or realistic settlers continue to rely on the Israeli state to fulfill the promise of the return of the Jewish people to the entire Land of Israel as described in the Bible, others advocate a separation from the national state, insofar as it does not sufficiently embody, symbolically and religiously, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel. More purist and revivalist settlers refuse alliances with state or parliamentary actors, even though these could provide them with the resources necessary to colonize the Land of Israel. This second category is examined below based on the empirical case of the Hilltop Youth, an innovative group.

For real. New messianic countercultures

The Hilltop Youth, whose numbers have grown steadily over the past 20 years, are scattered and more or less organized actors who prefer purity to compromise. Today, there are a few hundred of these more or less clandestine activists on the so-called “frontline” hills, defying the self-proclaimed “settler” movement. The Hill Youth enjoy the support of around a thousand people, settled around them in more or less permanent outposts.^[11]

What characterizes them is their radical quest for liberation, not only from exile, but also from Zionism. On the one hand, they reject the settlers who have been installed and supported by state budgets, who prefer bourgeois comfort to militancy and choose, purely for strategic reasons, to colonize the wild hills of the West Bank in order to better negotiate their withdrawal with the state. On the other hand, rather than aspiring to achieve an abstract Greater Israel, many prefer a physical relationship with their patch of hill, often intertwined with Palestinian land. Perched on the wildest hills of the West Bank, these collectives want to “bring redemption with their own hands.” Awaiting the return of the Temple, the settlers live in shelters made of sheet metal and wood, plastic tents, containers, old buses, on hills isolated from the rest of the settlements and outposts. They reject most ties, including those with representatives of religious Zionism, in order to achieve a “new Judaism,” rooted in the messianic hope of a reformed connection with the Promised Land and direct dialogue with the divine. Messianism here is a way of life that is fulfilled through practices and styles that “revive” ancestral times—those before the exile—in the ancestral Jewish space—the biblical Land of Israel—in order to rediscover a lost intimacy with the soil and the divine. This spirituality is realized through a material relationship with the land: by climbing, building, plowing, clearing stones, walking in the clay, and finally harvesting with various biblical and ancient techniques (using mills and presses). This renunciation of technology aims to get as close as possible to an “ancestral nature,” unaltered by two millennia of diasporic influences.

Rather than aspiring to achieve an abstract Greater Israel, many prefer a physical relationship with their patch of hillside. Perched on the wildest hills of the West Bank, these collectives want to “bring redemption with their own hands.”

Similarly, on the hills, clothing choices and physical appearance evoke ancient Israel. Men grow their hair long, wearing large-mesh kippahs and displaying prayer shawls, in reference to the biblical Hebrews as they imagine them. Women’s hair is held back in colorful scarves, sometimes adorned with jewelry and pearls, inspired by representations of ancient Israeli women. This physicality, imbued with multiple esoteric, New Age, and neo-Hasidic references, is the key to the redemptive link between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, and thus to direct access to the divine (Persico, 2014 and Nicolle-Hasid, 2019).

Imagination alone is not enough, because emancipation must be rooted in a materiality and a here-and-now that neither the state nor the settler movements born of Zionism can provide. For many of the Hilltop Youth, the promise to be fulfilled is that of a theocracy, with some even seeking to crown radical figures such as Rabbi Ginzburg.^[12] This is a “revivalist” messianism that advocates Jewish authenticity and an ideal represented by Ancient Israel, as evidenced by their mystical, ancestral, and esoteric references. Most of the hilltop youth have not read the fundamental texts, and their fervor or exaltation reflects above all a break with and disbelief in state Zionism: the 2005 disengagement from Gaza appeared to them to put an end to the prophecy of messianism “by” the state.

“The other” and violence

The question of relations with Palestinians arises. The settlers perched on the hills are sometimes only a few dozen meters away from Palestinian villages. They live in unguarded dwellings that do not benefit from military protection, and most of them are unarmed. However, Palestinians seem to be deterred from harming them by a threat that goes beyond simple reprisals. Indeed, the presence of these “others”—the Palestinians—on the land of Israel is a real obstacle to the messianic dream, as it prevents the connection between the land and the divine with the Jewish people. In this sense, violence is always a possibility, as it is part of the mental universe of the Hilltop Youth. For them, resorting to violence is a metaphysical liberation, a salvific and spiritual practice. Chosen and translated into action, violence allows them to feel and declare themselves “free Jews.”

Most Hilltop Youth have not read the fundamental texts, and their fervor or exaltation reflects above all a break with and disbelief in state Zionism.

“The main characteristic of hilltop Judaism is that it offers the possibility of liberation.”^[13]

This type of messianism is a kind of topia, a space between the imaginary and the real, between emancipation and contingency, which allows one to experiment with the here and now. It is reminiscent of other contemporary ways of life, in Europe and elsewhere: think of survivalists fearing collapse, libertarians rejecting all political institutions, or autonomous movements creating their own kingdoms in the present, a time of emancipation (Bulle, 2025).

Not all forms of messianism outside the “State” have the violent and retrograde character of the Hilltop Youth. There are other ways to detach oneself from the religious Zionism of the Kook rabbis, by taking a more spiritual path. Some refer, for example, to the writings of Rabbi Fruman, nicknamed the “peacenik rabbi,” known for his dialogue with Sheikh Yassin, the ideologue of Hamas.^[14] Like that of Rabbi Kook Sr., Rabbi Fruman’s thinking was deeply rooted in the Hasidic imagination. He experienced a spiritual connection to the land of Israel as a link to the divine and believed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved through forms of coexistence alternative to state Zionism.^[15] How can these trends be described other than as prefigurative^[16] political activism aimed at transcending or renouncing state Zionism?

Messianism in the present

“You have to start with the horizon (…) then you think practically ‘backwards’, how to get back to what we have today, and you know how to do things to move forward (…) but if you start today without being a little bit tomorrow, then tomorrow will never look like the idea you had of it.“^[17]

The framework we have presented here cannot be reduced to a opposition between realistic offensive positions and purist ones. While some ideological settlers consider the Zionist parties to be a disaster, a betrayal, and a usurpation, others may find points of convergence with various official organizations, such as the religious Zionist party led by Betzalel Smotrich, in order to pierce the Zionist apparatus and amplify their voice within the Jewish and Israeli world, particularly the secularized one. It is not surprising that these settlers cultivate an imagined link between their lifestyles and the precepts that inspired the creation of the kibbutzim, imagining themselves as pioneers of a new world.^[18]

This messianism of the present, if not presentist, highlights two things. The first is the multiplicity of sources of criticism of the modern, secular nation-state; the second is the breadth of references to the kingdom of the Jews, which can be realized outside the state or within it, according to temporal grammars and modes of action ranging from environmental peaceniks to Jews of force. A “real” messianism makes it possible to define those actors who, whether or not they compromise with statism, share the desire to realize the kingdom of the Jews in the present time.

Land and messianism. From Jerusalem to Gaza

From Jerusalem to the Gaza settlements, there is only one step. “We are in a time of miracles,” announced Daniella Weiss, a prominent figure among Israeli messianics, in July 2024. Weiss heads the Nachala organization with the strong support of part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government coalition. In October 2024, the director of the same organization declared: “By next (Jewish) year, there will be [new] Jewish settlement in Gaza.” This incantation took place during a “conference” organized for its activists in a camp set up near the martyred kibbutz of Beeri, where more than 130 people were massacred on October 7, 2023, a military zone usually closed to the public. At this gathering, young children of settler activists played war games, built houses out of modeling clay on a map of Gaza, and participated in hands-on workshops for “young pioneers,” just a stone’s throw from the bombings of Gaza. Amidst stands run by various radical religious, supremacist, and Kahanist organizations, as well as huts covered with political party banners, their parents listened to speeches by “politicians” and rabbis under a banner proclaiming: “Come live in the new Gaza City.” According to the organizers, this future city will be “technological and ecological,” as well as symbolizing “total victory.” Why organize such a gathering a few miles from the Gaza border?

For supporters of religious Zionist messianism, the horizon of redemption lies in a present that allows them to imagine the real possibility of living and organizing themselves in a chosen world. This is, in a way, the meaning of Daniella Weiss’s statement that we must “get used” to imagining Gaza. For these activists to get used to the idea of living in Gaza, they must “see Gaza, see the sea (…), breathe the air.”^[19] There is therefore a place where this prefiguration makes sense: the sands at the gates of Gaza, from where a concrete plan of action is launched, rather than speeches of religious ecstasy, Kabbalistic incantations of salvation, or promises of future redemption.

It is indeed a now “realistic” vision that allows messianism to live here and now, “for real,” in opposition to the integrationists, who are paralyzed by their devotion to obsolete Israeli political institutions. Is it possible to see, in the near future, this messianism reviving Gush Katif, the name of the settlement blocs that some nostalgic settlers dream of? For these groups, which are determined to make their mark on the environment, the future of Gaza and the West Bank is part of the near future, especially as the messianic dynamic is gaining ground and exerting an unprecedented influence on Israeli politics. Alongside this, it is worth highlighting the role of American evangelism, supported by the Israeli ruling coalition, in the hope of seeing the entire Land of Israel controlled by the Jewish people.

Attacks on Palestinian land and villages by Jewish settlers have serious consequences for Israel’s politics and image. To assert that the land of Israel cannot exist without causing damage to the Palestinian environment, as settler groups sometimes do, is a religious and spiritual paradox. This violence runs counter to the original doctrine of religious Zionism conceived by the Kook rabbis^[20], who did not consider Arab and Druze Palestinians to be enemies. Can we then speak of such attitudes as a turning point within religious Zionism or Zionist messianism? Can we still hope for another representation of it, one that would favor coexistence and “earthly” composition (Latour 2017) rather than hinting at a disturbing future?

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Perle Nicolle-Hasid & Sylvaine Bulle

 

References

Bulle, S. 2025. « Gustav Landauer et les petits royaumes »., Cahiers philosophiques (Dossier Gustav Landauer), to be published soon.

Katzman, H. (2020). The Hyphen Cannot Hold: Contemporary Trends in Religious-Zionism. Israel Studies Review, 35(2), 154-174.

Nicolle-Hasid, P. (2019). Beyond and Despite the State: Young Religious Settlers’ Visions of Messianic Redemption, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, 16: 116-143.

Latour, B, 2017. Où atterrir ? : Comment s’orienter en politique, La Découverte,  2017

Persico, T. (2014). Neo-Hasidic Revival. Expressivist Uses of Traditional Lore. Modern Judaism, A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, 34(3): 287-308.