Last night, the Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum left on a trip to Israel, his first since becoming rebbe several years ago. Teitelbaum's stated aim for the trip – besides attending a granddaughter's wedding – is to disrupt Israel's national elections scheduled for Tuesday and to encourage haredim to resist the military draft. He got a massive sendoff in Brooklyn last night and a large police escort that appeared to be supplemented with several private SUVs with (illegally) blaring sirens.
Oy reboinoi shel olam what a circus and its for free:)
Posted by: jancsibacsi | January 20, 2013 at 07:28 AM
looks like royalty then a religious figure
Posted by: seymour | January 20, 2013 at 07:32 AM
Posted by: Noah | January 20, 2013 at 07:36 AM
yep your right but the Muslims do an even better job
Posted by: seymour | January 20, 2013 at 07:46 AM
Not to mention the Nuremberg Rally was a huge success.
Posted by: Yochanan Lavie | January 20, 2013 at 08:24 AM
Yes, Noah, the Hasidim do have a certain amount of power due to 1) numbers, and 2) organization. But due to thier refusal to engage with the outside world, and pursue secular/non-religious education, they also have massive amounts of poverty and ignorance. Now, you tell me...is there anything in the Torah, or the Bible, or anyplace else that mandates this poverty and ignorance, or...are poverty and ignorance tools that Hasidim leaders use to maintain their power over the weak-minded, easily-led, and easily-manipulated?
Posted by: Robert J. Barron, Attorney-at-Law | January 20, 2013 at 08:29 AM
Can someone please tell me why the man can't just get in a car and drive there himself? Or have someone just drive him alone? Give me a major break. Who the hell does he think he is? How can the NYPD possibly justify putting cops on an escort for this man?
Posted by: Anonymous | January 20, 2013 at 10:03 AM
Posted by: Anonymous
The Rabbi and his driver would have been sufficient. I really looks like something was going down.
Posted by: Reuvan Nucgem | January 20, 2013 at 10:23 AM
Can someone please tell me why the man can't just get in a car and drive there himself? Or have someone just drive him alone? Give me a major break. Who the hell does he think he is? How can the NYPD possibly justify putting cops on an escort for this man?
Posted by: Anonymous | January 20, 2013 at 10:03 AM
Because there are a lot of insane zionists out there ready to kill in the name of their deity "Medinat Yisrael"
Posted by: YTHM | January 20, 2013 at 10:29 AM
In contrast, Reb Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach only took city buses. These Chasidim are so fake and phony it makes me sick. And it all starts at the top. Get a Rebbe who acts like a prima donna and now you know why all the Satmars walk around like they own the world.
Posted by: Anonymous | January 20, 2013 at 10:34 AM
Anonymous
They truley feel like they are prima donnas. Thats why they act as they are above the law and they live in FANTASY LAND. They rape little boys in the mikvah and little girls in webermans "OFFICE" and than they cry foul
Just look under any satmar long coat you will see a man with an erection.
The rov is giving out $100 bills not to vote!!!
How much is he paying for a BJ???
Posted by: put a square into a hole | January 20, 2013 at 11:13 AM
Can someone please tell me why the man can't just get in a car and drive there himself? Or have someone just drive him alone? Give me a major break. Who the hell does he think he is? How can the NYPD possibly justify putting cops on an escort for this man?
Posted by: Anonymous | January 20, 2013 at 10:03 AM
How can we be certain that at the President's inauguration tomorrow, the platform does not give weight under the weight of all the people on it?
It is for this reason, that dress rehearsals are now being held where all the officials attend, and the role of the President and his family are played by staff workers or their spouses. That way if anything goes wrong or is missed during the planning, the embarrassment will not be televised and will not involve the President.
NYPD officers need to practice high speed VIP escorts. It would be terrible embarrassing for the NYPD if some important diplomat, such as the deputy to the second secretary at the Embassy of Kitts and St Nevis got stuck going the wrong way down a one way street because of some rookie mistake.
By escorting Teitelbaum, the NYPD get some high speed escort practice without needing to get the brother law of some Bronx desk sergeant to play the role of a VIP, and if due to some incompetence of some rookie officer's part something goes wrong and Teitelbaums car crashes, hurling him head first towards the rear end of an NYPD horse, then at least we can be grateful that no one as important as the second secretary at the Embassy of Nevis and St Kitts was involved.
Besides, the overtime comes in useful.
Posted by: Barry | January 20, 2013 at 11:59 AM
Jancsi
What a circus...
Don't look in the mirror; it'll frighten you.
Posted by: Better than you | January 20, 2013 at 11:59 AM
You may not like them, but they are huge powerful and not going anywhere. Sounds like pure jealously and hatred in the comments. Not that I particularly care for all this either. I have come to know a lot of individual Satmers and found them to be kind people.
Posted by: ca | January 20, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Pop stars and sports teams regularly get larger crowds. Satmar have less political power than Paris Hilton or Justin Bieber.
Posted by: Barry | January 20, 2013 at 01:27 PM
"...If Shmarya would come to New York - how many would be at the airport to greet him? 1? 5? 10? 1,000? None?..."
That's beside the point altogether; Shmarya isn't a leader of a cult/sect the way Teitelbaum is.
Let us put this whole business of the escort in perspective. New York is a city of 8 million, a couple million (more or less) of them Jews, about 250,000 of them Haredim of one stripe or another of which Satmar is but one stream. There are 150,000 or so Satmar in the entire world, about 60,000 in Williamsburg. Teitelbaum is the leader, then, of a group the constitutes about 25% of the Haredi population, 3% of the overall Jewish population and 0.75% of the overall population of the City of New York (approximately). The most probable reason for the city having granted him an escort of this kind is to curry political favor with him and his bloc-voting minions. I'm sure the cardinal in NY or the bishop of one of the large Protestant streams gets no such treatment - sirens screaming, etc. A livery vehicle with blacked-out windows would be more than enough for any of them. A sirens-blaring motorcade for the leader of China or Russia or you-name-which major country visiting the UN, yes, and necessary too. Nice political organizing by the Satmar and nice pandering by the pols. Or maybe money changed hands. Who knows?
"...the seculars are like an army of privates - leaderless, the Hasidim have powers in numbers and organization...."
The seculars in NY are mostly non-Jewish and to them the Haredim and their doings are of little account; their antics are of more serious concern in Israel. The point about the secular population being without coordinated leadership and thus not being well prepared at this time to deal with disruptive sects like Satmar is a valid one. One day, though, a line may be crossed and the secular level of concern could very well rise abruptly at which time the potential exists for an ugly confrontation in which the Haredim will in all likelihood come out second best. They're so isolated from the world outside their mental eruv that they have no concept of the power the mass of secular non-sympathizers, suitably roused, could bring to bear and which would thoroughly disrupt their lifestyle. Not to put too fine a point on it: it's not the Haredim who've got combat training, formal or otherwise acquired. Faced with a roused secular population what will they do? Throw stones? Dirty diapers? Spit? Set trash bins on fire? Game, set, match.
Posted by: S M L | January 20, 2013 at 01:43 PM
This smacks of idolatry big time.. Hail Rebbe. Meanwhile our kinder are under constant threat. We at least know where our community priorities lie, do we not? Sad. Luke
Posted by: Luke | January 20, 2013 at 02:13 PM
The fight ends and the battle will resume at a later date.
Posted by: Efraim | January 20, 2013 at 02:18 PM
Or, more likely perhaps, the real battle for Israel's future will begin at a later date. In the US numerically they're down in the noise level, relatively speaking, one more extremist sect among many and will likely get away with their nonsense for some time yet for that reason.
Posted by: S M L | January 20, 2013 at 02:37 PM
To Efraim
This sendoff looks like a its for Weberman.
If you wer the satmar rov that kisses ass to ALL pedophiles and rapist in his sext. You can also be called for an escort service...
Posted by: puta square into a hole | January 20, 2013 at 02:44 PM
Way over the top.
Posted by: ott | January 20, 2013 at 03:40 PM
This is all the entertainment they are ever afforded, so they come out to the street in droves, just to get a peek at Justin Bieber's, I mean the Satmar Rebbe's car. Like throngs of little girls screaming and fainting if they get a glimpse of their teen idol.
Anyway, in case nobody noticed, it's all men. The women are not allowed to join the festivities. Not that they necessarily want to. But even if they would, they could only look through their home windows to get a glimpse of the holy Rebbe's car. No women's section for this party, not even a closed off one.
Posted by: Abracadabra | January 20, 2013 at 03:59 PM
To keep his masses under his sway the Rebbe needs to imply he has juice with the system. Also, Aron & Zaali are endlessly competing for who is more important and this is one of many ways in which they compete. This is celebrity competition, just in Yiddish with satin and fur. I wonder if he was stopped again at airport security.
By the way, for the ultimate parody of this sort of stuff see the video, ich vill zein a rebbe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyjKCTZIbEk
Posted by: Yerachmiel Lopin | January 20, 2013 at 04:28 PM
WHAT A SHOW!
What will the Holy country do???
They want even dare to arrest him, the Satmerers are to clever to be caught in any criminal doings!
None of the Gedoile Hador have. Such an escort and also DONOT look for it!
Is this the Rebbe or are these his followers setting this all up.
Just a simple qui section for whom will the Rebbe vote??
Posted by: Petsel | January 20, 2013 at 04:47 PM
ech, TzVi, all your taste is in your mouth
Posted by: dh | January 20, 2013 at 05:37 PM
When the President visits NYC, the city is reimbursed expenses incurred. Will the Satmar rebbe be billed? Or is he too important? Inquiring minds want to know, Mayor Bloomberg.
Posted by: seth | January 20, 2013 at 06:47 PM
Come on, let his plan work, let these fools not go to vote, there will be less votes for the Caredi controlled party's as well.
On a separate note, I laugh at the ignorant hypcrisy of the Charedi fanatics who usually frown upon the Christians for following Jesus (the first zombi who came back from the dead)but blindly follow whatever these ignorant Rebbe's ask them to do, and then when they die, they go to their graves to pray.
Posted by: Account Deleted | January 20, 2013 at 11:33 PM