Posted on 04/27/2006 1:26:56 PM PDT by conserv13
The Satmar religious community was on the brink of civil war yesterday as two sons of the late Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum staked claim to the spiritual leadership of the sect.
The dispute was headed for a showdown at sundown tomorrow when followers of both brothers plan to flock to Brooklyn to celebrate the Sabbath in the streets of Williamsburg.
Aron Teitelbaum, eldest son of the grand rebbe, claimed to have support of 75% of the 120,000 Satmar followers, including sect leaders from Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
"A ceremony proclaiming Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum's appointment will be held in the coming weeks in Williamsburg, Brooklyn," said a statement from Aron Teitelbaum's congregation in Kiryas Joel, Orange County.
Aron Teitelbaum, 57, has vowed to move his official residence to Williamsburg, where his brother, Zalmen, is head of the local Satmar congregation.
But on Tuesday, a rabbinical court deemed Zalmen the new grand rebbe in accordance with his father's will. Zalmen, appointed by his father to head the Williamsburg flock, accepted the mantle.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
I doubt THAT would have done anything. Back then famous Jews were changing their last names to be more anglo. Plus the government was very antisemitic, as antisemitic as they were anti-black and I'd say the Jew hatred was more than the other. No other reason than Jew hate is why Jews fleeing Nazis were turned away.
You admit to an error in writing what you intended and then you call me sick for responding to what you actually wrote?
Read what you wrote. Think of how it's interpreted.
Fair enough..
The violence in Ireland was between two different sects. This is one sect fighting within each other.
ping
Good that you used the word "sects".
Hasidim are sects. Each a mirror of their leader.
It is exactly for that reason that once two groups, each claiming a different leader a formed, you have two sects.
What you see is a fight between sects.
Think there would be fist fights, at least, breaking out if one group of Catholics choose one Pope and other group a different Pope?
Follow the money. This is more about who gets to control the $$$
The reason for the religious wars in Europe was that the winners got to control the assets of the losers. This is a good reason to not have your church having lots of assets -- it invites all sorts of folk to come in and try to take over so they can loot the assets
No good will come of this...
Shavua Tov!
I had an acquaintance who had been involved in a din Torah with the Satmar Rav, and had been conversing with him concerning general affairs. I'm not sure how it came up, but he was quoted as bemoaning the state of affairs with his sons something like:
The Lebovitcher Rebbe and the Brestlover Rav are Niftar, and yet their followers still remain loyal and cohesive, and here I am, still alive and they are already trying to tear the Kehilla apart. (This was around 5 years ago...)
“under Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” the Hasidim were designated a “disadvantaged minority.” “
That’s because: At the time, they were one.
According to “From Hungary, For Hannukah, From Long Ago” by Joan Nathan, New York Times December 13, 2006. Accessed December 14, 2006.” via Wikipedia:
“The Satmar Hassidic sect that founded the Village of Kiryas Joel originated in Szatmarnemeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare, Romania), Teitelbaum’s home, which was nearly wiped out when the Nazis deported 12,000 residents to Auschwitz.[1]”
“In 1977, when Teitelbaum bought the land which became his “modern shtetl” of Kiryas Joel, fourteen Satmar families settled there. By 2006, there were over 3,000.[1]”
That’s right, 14 families of a religious sect and beacon of Torah scholarship from preWW2 Europe that was predominantly slaughtered off in the Holocaust settled in the land purchased by the rebbe in hopes of resurrecting their legacy from its destitute remaining families and rebbe, and with hopes that America offered greater freedoms to not only practice their own religion in safety from physical harm but perhaps with some actual contribution to their revival causes by the govt at large, which had already decreed under Lyndon Johnson that Chassidim did constitute a disadvantaged minority that deserved govt assitance. Given their obvious needs as the result of their WW2 Europe experience, it would hardly seem a “liberal” or “democratic” (or whatever the likes of the self-righteous blog-posters and americans like to label themselves as these days) point of view to suggest that they were undeserving of such benefits or should have them revoked or never received them. This settlement also followed a similar pattern employed immediately following WW2 by the same rebbe, who began by settling a small number of families of his remaining tribe in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Since space became limited with the expansion of the population, and a relative seclusion from the moral influences of the big city was desired, the rebbe than purchased legally the land in the Town of Monroe now known as Kiryas Yoel. You think you would have motive to move out of Hungary if that was your situation?
And then there are clowns on here that have the audacity to accuse the Satmar Jews as being Holocaust deniers or to villify them as somehow anti-Jewish over their belief that Jews also bear some personal responsibility for bringing on the Holocaust. Ask any orthodox rabbi and he will agree with that concept. Any Torah observant Jew knows that all throughout our history we have been to blame for our own tragedies, even those at the hands of evil people. They come from our own mistakes in general as a nation, including but not limited to reasonless hatred of fellow Jews (hmm, seems particularly relevant for some reason in this context), rejection of Torah principles, rejection of G-d, breakdown of our morals etc. We believe in the idea of punishment and reward (not to mention supremacy of the the Holy One, Blessed is He, over any nation) and to suggest we are completely exempt from any large-scale implications for our own internal conflicts and rebellions is to ignore our internal belief system. And to suggest that disasters befalling our people are simply due to the ability of “evil men” to somehow overcome the heavens and produce vast injustice, or more simplistically mere ‘random chance,’ would be a tragically misguided point of view to take on this matter.
Now I personally don’t think they are without fault, as no people are, but they are not nearly the “scourge” people make them out to be, and pointing out things they might consider changing or working on is one thing (although it’s largely none of anyone’s business on here in the first place), but to charge them with things they are not guilty of or to blast the legitimate actions they have taken is either severely misguided or just plain intolerant. Is this country not founded on religious freedom? If their religious custom has become a certain type of dress and lifestyle, who are any of us to tell them they have to be and act more like we do?
I really hope for your sake that you are being sarcastic. Otherwise, you have a lot of reading up on history that you should be doing.
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