Rabbi Dov Lando Sparks Row Over Anti-Zionist Remarks
Rabbi Dov Lando sparked political controversy after footage emerged of him suggesting Jews might have been better off without a state.
Footage of Dov Lando, a senior spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party and the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, has sparked a political row in Israel. In the recording, originally from February 2025 but broadcast by Channel 12 in October 2026, Lando suggests that Jews might have been better off without a state and claims Zionism brought disaster to the Jewish people.
Lando further asserted that soldiers from the Religious Zionism movement died because their rabbis taught them a "distorted Torah." These comments surface three weeks before the October 27 parliamentary election and intensify existing tensions regarding the military conscription of ultra-Orthodox men following a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that ended their exemptions.
Opposition leaders Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot have used the remarks to attack Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of relying on anti-Zionist leadership to maintain his government. While Bennett characterized the comments as anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist, Eisenkot urged Zionist parties to pledge not to form a government with Lando's party. Netanyahu has not yet commented on the footage.
