Free Republic

Quick current affairs quiz: In what country last month did a family have their cars vandalized, their daughter threatened and their house torched for attending the wrong place of worship? A) Saudi Arabia, B) Afghanistan, C) Pakistan, D) None of the above. The correct answer is “D” none of the above. This happened last month in New York in the hamlet of New Square. This tiny enclave is populated exclusively by Hassidic Jews mostly of the Skvere sect. That seems is where the trouble started.

Aron Rottenberg is recovering at Westchester Medical Center with burns on 50 percent of his body. The pain is excruciating, his family says. He was burned when he and his son wrestled with a would-be arsonist who on 4 a.m. Sunday had placed flammable rags on Rottenberg's wooden back porch in New Square and tried to light them, according to police. Four hours later, cops arrested Shaul Spitzer, 18, who lives nearby. He had burns on his hands. He was charged with arson, attempted murder, and assault. Rottenberg's wife and daughters were at home sleeping when his son saw on...

On a windy Monday night, Pete’s Candy Store—a bar in Williamsburg with a railcar-shaped performance space in the back—is crammed to capacity with the thin and the bearded. Almost no one is drinking. The mood is pregame, expectant and nervous. We’re at one of the oddest New York City powwows in recent memory: a panel designed to quell a metastasizing dispute between bicyclists and Hasidic Jews. Except no Hasids are present. For a moment, it looks like the bicyclists will have to debate themselves. At immediate issue is the Bedford Avenue bike lane. It’s the longest in Brooklyn and runs...

THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. HELMS, PART 529,876July 9, 2008 Last Friday, on the Fourth of July, the great American patriot Jesse Helms passed away. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson also went to their great reward on Independence Day, so this is further proof of God. Helms is now the second great American patriot I've always wanted to meet and never will, at least in this lifetime. The only other one is the magnificent Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger. (Wikipedia quote: "I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.") After a week of...

A public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption says it has obtained more than 30 photos taken at the White House in December of 2000 that link Hillary Clinton (D-New York) to some controversial pardons made by her husband the president. Judicial Watch says it obtained the 34 photos from the Clinton Presidential Library. The photos show Mrs. Clinton and then-President Bill Clinton with Grand Rabbi David Twersky and other community leaders at the White House. The meeting took place on December 22, 2000 -- after the New York based Hasidim sect delivered 1,400 votes to Hillary Clinton's...

The dispute over which of Moses Teitelbaum's sons will succeed him as the grand rabbi of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews raged in and out of court for the last six years of his life. Rabbi Teitelbaum's death last night appears unlikely to bring the controversy to a close. Less than two hours after the rabbi died, as tens of thousands of grieving Satmars thronged the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel, N.Y., a judge in Orange County issued several orders. Rabbi Teitelbaum's third son, Zalmen, lives in Williamsburg; his eldest son, Aaron, lives in Kiryas Joel in...

Moses Teitelbaum, the grand rabbi of the Satmar Hasidim, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing sects of Orthodox Jews, died yesterday in Manhattan. He was 91 and lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His family, through spokesmen, said he died at Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized for a number of ailments. Rabbi Teitelbaum became leader of the Satmars in 1980, succeeding his uncle Joel Teitelbaum. In Hasidism, a mystical brand of Orthodox Judaism, the grand rabbi is revered as a kinglike link to God, holding vast sway over members' lives. Joel Teitelbaum had transplanted the tattered remnants...

Angry mobs of Hasidim taunted cops and set fires in the streets of Brooklyn last night after police busted an elderly member of their community in a traffic stop. The wild protests flared shortly after 6:30 p.m., when police pulled over 75-year-old Arthur Schick for allegedly talking on his cell phone while driving in Borough Park. Cops said Schick - whose family founded the neighborhood institution Schick's Bakery - became belligerent and refused to hand over his license and registration, leading officers to arrest and handcuff him. Witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the arrest - with several saying nothing untoward...

Pity Larry Lowenthal. His job as executive director of the Boston branch of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) includes finding and training leaders from among the 700,000 Russian Jews who have immigrated to the U.S. in the last 30 years. Mr. Lowenthal has fared well: Today there are Russians helping to guide a number of major Jewish organizations, like the one called Boston for Israel. But now these immigrants turn out to be … oh no! Republicans! To judge by his public statements and writings, Mr. Lowenthal's idea of a faithful Jew is someone who opposes the nomination of Judge...

Nine people were arrested yesterday in a melee at the headquarters of Brooklyn's most visible ultra-Orthodox Jewish movement, which is divided over whether the Lubavitcher founder, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, is alive or dead. Workers at Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights were installing a new plaque on the building which refers to Schneerson's "blessed memory."

<p>October 30, 2003 -- A holy war between two feuding Brooklyn Hasidic groups erupted outside a religious school in Williamsburg yesterday as more than 150 students tried to storm the building, which had been closed by a rival faction.</p> <p>The school for recently married men, known as a kolel, was closed for the second straight day yesterday morning when the students arrived and were met by security guards and German shepherds.</p>