Mission Statement

Religious Zionists of America – Mizrachi is a movement that strives to build a strong bridge between Israel and the American Jewish community, support the state of Israel, and ensure that American Jews are connected to and taking responsibility for the state of Israel and the future of the Jewish people.

Our History

Mizrachi was founded in 1902 by Rabbi Reines in Lithuania. Mizrachi stands for Merkaz Ruchani (“spiritual center”), expressing the Religious Zionism belief that the Jewish state represented a spiritual as well as a political goal. 

Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan founded the American branch of Mizrachi, and hosted its first conference in Cincinnati Ohio, in May 1914. In its early years, American Mizrachi championed the cause of Religious Zionism in America and at the World Zionist Congress, to which it sent delegates, as well as championing and building Orthodox life in the United States. Mizrachi’s Teacher’s Institute trained a generation of teachers, and merged with the nascent Yeshiva College in the 1920’s to form Yeshiva University. In the 1920’s, Bessie Goldstein founded the Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America, later known as AMIT, which to this day runs dozens of educational institutions in Israel. 

American Mizrachi has also been there to support the religious quality of the State of Israel, from its founding and to today.  This includes the dream of establishing an Israeli university with traditional religious ethos at its core – which was brought to fruition as Bar Ilan University, founded by American Mizrachi’s Dr. Pinchos Churgin, who became the first dean of Bar Ilan University.