And if you think that the state has contributed to Torah learning, and that there’s an obligation of hakaras hatov for what they give us…i will aay that they take from us more than what they give. They are unauthorized to take taxes, yet they do. They repeatedly try to draft our young people into the shmad army, to make them frei when they don’t even need them. They bar us from many jobs with discrimination. They treat us horribly during protests for our freedom to live undisturbed in our neighborhoods. They stole the frumkeit of 1 million sefardim and many Taimanim who were driven out of their ancestral homes. They and their “rabbis” pollute klal yisroel with fake gerim and mamzerim.
They took the soul of our people.
So if they throw us a little money, does that solve it? They give more to secular people in the form of public schools and better infrastructure in their cities. They give less to the frummer.
But is there a chiyuv hakaras hatov despite all of that? Perhaps there is. We have hakaras hatov to paroh for giving us a place during galus, after all. But do we sing his praises? Did we support him and his country? Did we accept his ideology? No. We take their gerim after 3 doros… that’s the extent of it.
So what hakaras hatov should we have for zionists? Great question, and i don’t know the answer to it. But it never can involve violating the Torah by doing chanifah, supporting the state, accepting zionism, or anything else of the sort.