Rav kook

Religious Zionism has lost sight of Rav Kook’s ethics - opinion

Rav Kook united Zionism, holiness, and universal justice. Today’s Religious Zionism too often puts settling the land above ethical values.

RABBI ABRAHAM ISAAC KOOK, 1924
A sign in a Safed coffee shop showcasing the donation of recyclables to fund a tefillin stand.

Beyond the Headlines: Holiness in unexpected places - opinion

RABBI ABRAHAM ISAAC KOOK, 1924

Following Rabbi Kook’s footsteps through Latvia and Lithuania to the roots of religious Zionism

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gives a Jerusalem Day address, May 14, 2026.

WATCH: 'All of Israel is ours': Smotrich calls to annex West Bank in Jerusalem Day speech


Judaism has compassion for animals

Jewish thinkers and commentators weigh in on textual sources about compassion and cruelty regarding animal slaughter.

 The Freedom Farm Sanctuary in Olesh serves as a shelter for rescued animals from the meat and dairy industry.

Reflections on Yom Yerushalayim

Why can’t we create a Yom Yerushalayim ritual that contrasts the suffering and the redemption, the dream and the fulfillment?

Israelis hold flags and walk on the walls surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City while celebrating Jerusalem Day on May 21

Israel's third elections marks the defeat of Rabbi Kook’s dream

Let’s imagine a conversation between Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook, religious Zionism’s greatest thinker, and the four Yamina Party leaders.

ENDLESS ELECTIONS are not what they had in mind.

Theodor Herzl vs. Rabbi Kook

“As rabbi of Jaffa, Kook was requested to eulogize Herzl who passed away just two months ago. For a rabbi raised in the world of the yeshivas of Lithuania it was a difficult and challenging act."

RABBI ZVI YEHUDA KOOK (right) – whose father Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook founded Mercaz HaRav – stands outside the Jerusalem yeshiva with Rabbi Avraham Shapira, who went on to lead the yeshiva, in 1980. Rabbi Zvi Yehuda hung a picture of Herzl in his study next to pictures of the Chofetz Chaim and the

Israel elections: Who – and what – are you voting for?

‘If you are going to build a country, you had better be prepared to get your hands dirty!’– Rav Kook

VOTE AS IF your life depended upon it.

Statehood and spirit: Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook

Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook made aliyah two months prior to Herzl’s death and was appointed rabbi of Jaffa and the colonies. As part of his position he was requested to eulogize Herzl.

RABBI ABRAHAM ISAAC KOOK, 1924

Bergson’s race against the Shoah in America

Two Holocaust scholars, in a book based largely on interviews, give voice to Peter Bergson, a key Holocaust rescue activist in America

A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust. David S. Wyman and Rafael Medoff 288 pages; $26.95 (Hardcover)

Votes for women

“Rav Kook truly thought that total equality of the sexes was not only a halachic [Jewish law] problem, but even more so a historical, social, and moral mistake"-Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun

BRITISH SUFFRAGETTE Christabel Pankhurst takes part in a procession, 1911.

The four songs of Rav Kook

In an attempt to expose Kook’s ideas to a wider audience, Schwartz has compiled and translated some of the most significant parts of his work into 268 pages, organized into four main sections.

RAV ABRAHAM ISAAC KOOK, seen here in 1924

Bayit Yehudi proposes nat'l commemoration day for Rav Kook

Shas is hoping to piggy back on Bayit Yehudi’s bill by advancing their own legislation in tandem for a national day of commemoration for the party’s late spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook