Zvi Yehuda Kook

Zvi Yehuda Kook (Hebrew: צבי יהודה קוק, 23 April 1891 – 9 March 1982) was an ultranationalist Orthodox rabbi. He was the son of Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. Both father and son are credited with developing Kookian Zionism, which became the dominant form of Religious Zionism. He was Rosh Yeshiva (dean) of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva.

Kook's fundamentalist teachings were a significant factor in the formation and activities of the modern religious settlement movement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, largely through his influence on the Gush Emunim movement, which was founded by his students. Many of his ideological followers established such settlements, and he has been credited with the dissemination of his father's ideas, helping to form the basis of Religious Zionism.

Kook presided for nearly six decades over the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva (lit. 'The Rabbi's Centre') founded by his father in Jerusalem, which became "the flagship yeshiva of religious Zionism", where hundreds of future militants, opposed to territorial compromises and promoting Israeli settlement of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, received their formative education.