WASHINGTON : US President Donald Trump has held a private meeting with six prominent ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders, including rabbis from the anti-Zionist Satmar movement, in an unusual White House encounter that brought Israel’s wars and the contentious military draft of yeshiva students into focus.
According to Al Jazeera, the rabbis used the meeting to press their concerns over Israel’s military actions and called for an end to the war in Gaza.
The delegation included Satmar leaders Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum and Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, along with senior figures representing the Skver, Bobov and Vizhnitz Hasidic communities and Lakewood’s Beth Medrash Govoha. The gathering was particularly significant because several participants oppose Zionism and reject the idea that the modern State of Israel represents Judaism.
The Israeli military conscription of yeshiva students was also a major concern for the ultra-Orthodox community, with some rabbis seeking Trump’s intervention on the issue. The meeting marked a rare high-level engagement between the US president and leaders who maintain an explicitly anti-Zionist position.