of Agudat Yisrael When political Zionism began to emerge in the 1890s, and recruit supporters in Europe and America, it was opposed by many Orthodox Jews, who believed the Jewish state would emerge from divine intervention.
World Agudath Israel was founded in Kattowitz,
German Empire (now
Katowice,
Poland), in 1912, to provide an umbrella organization for observant Jews who opposed the
Zionist movement. In Palestine, Agudat Yisrael was established as a branch of this movement, to provide opposition to the organised Zionist Jewish community (the "New
Yishuv", as opposed to the traditionalist, religious "Old Yishuv"). One of its most authoritative spokesmen against the formation of a Jewish State, the Dutch poet
Jacob Israël de Haan, was assassinated by the
Haganah in 1924. In 1933, it entered into an agreement with the
Jewish Agency in Palestine, according to which Agudat Yisrael would receive 6.5% of the immigration permits. It was led at the time by Rabbi
Moshe Blau (brother of the head of
Neturei Karta,
Rabbi Amram Blau). In the wake of the Holocaust, anti-Zionist rabbis who led Agudat Israel recognised the great utility of a Jewish state, and it became non-Zionist, rather than anti-Zionist. It did not actively participate in the creation of Israel, but it ceased its opposition to it. Over time, the movement realized that its more active participation in politics would come with benefits, and it agreed to become a coalition partner of several Israeli governments. However, its original reservations about a secular government influenced its decision to refuse cabinet positions. Agudat Yisrael originally had a mixed
Hasidic and "
Litvish" (Lithuanian-style Haredi) membership. However, in the 1980s, Rabbi
Elazar Shach, leader of Israel's Litvish community and their pre-eminent
rosh yeshiva ("
yeshiva dean"), split from the party. He created the new
Degel HaTorah ("Flag of the Torah") party. Most of the Litvish community left Agudah to join Degel HaTorah, leaving Agudah with primarily Hasidic members. Rabbi Shach had earlier assisted Rabbi
Ovadiah Yosef in splitting from Agudah to create a
Sephardic Haredi party known as
Shas. Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah have not always agreed with each other about policy matters; however, over the years, the two parties have co-operated and united as a
voting bloc to win the maximum number of seats in the
Knesset, since many extra votes can be wasted if certain thresholds are not attained under Israel's
proportional representation parliamentary system. The two parties chose to function and be listed under the name of
United Torah Judaism (UTJ, Hebrew
Yahadut HaTorah). When both parties joined the government coalition of
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004, the UTJ union was broken due to rivalries. For the
2006 Israel legislative election, Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah once again put their differences aside, and officially revived their United Torah Judaism alliance to win the maximum number of seats in the
17th Knesset. Though Agudat Yisrael has never elected more than ten members in the Knesset, it has often played crucial roles in the formation of Israel's
coalition governments because Israel's system of proportional representation allows small parties to wield the balance of power between the larger parties. This political leverage has been used to obtain funding for
yeshivas and community institutions, to obtain a de facto exemption for Haredi Yeshiva students from military service, and to pass legislation regarding the observance of the
Shabbat and
kashrut dietary regulations, sometimes to the consternation of
secular Israelis. ==Religious and political leadership==