Shimon Schwab

Shimon (Simon) Schwab was an Orthodox rabbi and communal leader in Germany and the United States. Educated in Frankfurt am Main and in the yeshivas of Lithuania, he was rabbi in Ichenhausen, Bavaria, after immigration to the United States in Baltimore, and from 1958 until his death at Khal Adath Jeshurun in Washington Heights, Manhattan. He was an ideologue of Agudath Israel of America, specifically defending the Torah im Derech Eretz approach to Jewish life. He wrote several popular works of Jewish thought. He did not shirk from difficult and potentially controversial questions, such as those concerning the Jewish view on the age of the universe and problems in harmonising a 165-year gap in traditional Jewish history with scientifically accepted calculations.

Rav Schwab opposed both secular and religious Zionism, both in his writings and in his speeches. Though he said that even when rejecting these heretical ideas, we must still love those that the Torah commanded us to love. He also stressed that there "must never be any contact with organized heresy in whatever shape or form. When it comes to Zionism, especially the kind that has changed it from Realpolitik into a pre-Messianic religion, let us be firm and brave and defy all forces which tend to weaken our fundamentalist (yes) loyalty to the unadulterated heritage which we have received from our forebears. But all this without hate, without anger, and with great humility." In his opinion, Modern-Orthodox leaders who promoted Religious Zionism should not be given public recognition as representatives of Torah.