Leader of anti-Zionist Neturei Karta group passes away at 87

A leader of the anti-Zionist Haredi Neturei Karta group who once met with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has died. Rabbi Moshe Dov Ber Beck was 87.

Beck, a central leader of the Neturei Karta for decades, died Thursday night of complications of COVID following a long illness, according to the Israeli news site B’chadrei Charedim.

His anti-Zionist group was established in 1938 and opposes the statehood of the Zionist regime.

The group has met with Holocaust deniers and leaders of the Iranian government, which has threatened Israel with extermination.

In 2006, Neturei Karta participated in a Holocaust denial convention in Tehran. In 2008, Beck was among its leaders who met with Ahmadinejad in New York a day after the Iranian president made a speech at the United Nations.

Beck, a native of Budapest, Hungary, moved to Israel as a boy in 1948. He eventually left Israel due to his anti-Zionist beliefs, moving to Montreal, Canada, and eventually to Monsey, New York, where he led a synagogue that served as a center for the Neturei Karta.