Satmar Zalman Faction Attacks KIryas Joel Satmar Rebbe's Claim That Murdered Boys' Parents "Responsible" For Their Deaths

“Reb Yoel was compassionate and had mercy on every human being and always felt in the pain of others, even those from other backgrounds. He would always try to help out any Jew whenever he was asked. How is it possible to say to someone so recently bereaved that they are guilty of murder? Even if those remarks were correct, who gave Reb Aron permission to speak like this during such a painful time?”

Above from left: Ayal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frankel

Yeshiva World has posted an article that essentially whitewashes the scope of the anti-Zionism of the first Satmar Rebbe, the late Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum.

The article – full of quotes from unnamed followers of the Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum – paints Reb Yoilish (as the elder Teitelbaum was known to many) as a compassionate anti-Zionist who didn't say intemperate things about other Jews – especially at times of their suffering.

This is false. The elder Teitelbaum blamed Zionists for the Holocaust and said and wrote many despicable things in his life, either directly himself or through proxies.

During the Holocaust, when Jews in Hungary were still basically safe, Teitelbaum's proxies frequently told Jews that Zionism was the cause of the Holocaust (whose true scope most did not yet know) and that Jews in Hungary and other neighboring countries that had not yet felt the full brunt of the Nazis would be safe, because we – the hasidim and the Oberlanders – were so vehemently anti-Zionist.

(Please see Eim HaBanim Semeichah by Rabbi Yissochar Shlomo Teichtal for good examples of this. Teichtal was a member of the area's hasidic anti-Zionism inner circle. He wrote this book while hiding from the Nazis in 1943 in order to recant his previous anti-Zionist views.)

The Yeshiva World article attacks the Kiryas Joel Satmar Rebbe, Zalman Leib's estranged brother Aharon, for saying one day after the funerals that the parents of the three Zionist Orthodox boys who were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank by Arab terrorists were responsible for their sons' deaths. Aharon Teitelbaum also used the deaths to attack Zionism and the State of Israel, as well.

But it is careful to include a quote noting that Aharon may have been correct in what he said, but was insensitive with his timing.

Why would the non-hasidic haredi Flatbush-based Yeshiva World print something like this?

Some say for two reasons:

1. The Zalman faction of Satmar is taking a big hit politically and likely financially inside the Jewish community (and likely outside it, as well) due to what Zalman's estranged brother said, and it needs to quell this as fast as possible.

2. New York City Councilman David Greenfield depends heavily on Williamsburg Satmar money and support, and has been closely tied to Williamsburg Satmar for years. Greenfield and/or an employee of his allegedly wrote many Yeshiva World stories posted under the Dov Gordon byline. (When this was outed several years ago, Dov Gordon almost disappeared from having any regular appearances in Yeshiva World.)

I would point out that it is important to post what the Zalman faction is saying, so in that regard, Yeshiva World is right, regardless of what Greenfield's role was or wasn't in its publication.

Be that as it may, whatever the reason for the tenor of the article and its appearance, the one thing that should be clear is that when Satmar beliefs and practice are exposed, Satmar suffers.

I should also note that the IDF and Shin Bet warnings against hitchhiking were delivered primarily (and in some cases, exclusively) to settler leaders and to settler rabbis – not to parents and children.

There is no evidence I know of at this point that the boys' parents had ever been directly warned that hitchhiking in the West Bank was now more dangerous than before and that the IDF and Shin Bet wanted it stopped.

If anyone should be blamed here besides the Arab terrorists who kidnapped and murdered the boys, it is settler leaders and settler rabbis.

Here's the Yeshiva World article in full:

Satmar Chasidim Criticize Reb Aron’s Remarks as ‘Terribly Wrong’

Followers of Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum have come out strongly in response to remarks made yesterday by Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, who blamed the parents of the three murdered Israeli teens for their son’s death, saying that those who choose to live in the Israeli settlements are putting their family’s lives at risk.

Thousands of followers of Reb Zalman Leib were stunned by the remarks made yesterday in Kiryas Joel, saying that invoking the name of the Satmar Rebbe, Reb Yoel ZATZAL, to support those statements was an embarrassment to the late Rebbe.

“Reb Yoel was compassionate and had mercy on every human being and always felt in the pain of others, even those from other backgrounds. He would always try to help out any Jew whenever he was asked. How is it possible to say to someone so recently bereaved that they are guilty of murder? Even if those remarks were correct, who gave Reb Aron permission to speak like this during such a painful time?”

“The Rebbe would have never sanctioned something like this,” remarked one elder Satmar chosid who learned in the Rebbe’s yeshiva before the Holocaust. “He was known to daven constantly for Jews to be saved from their pain and heartache.”

It is well known Reb Yoel led a lengthy campaign against the Zionist movement after the Six Day War and that he spoke numerous times against those who said that G-d had performed miracles for the Zionists.

“How is it possible to rejoice at this time and to say that miracles occurred?” said Reb Yoel during one of famous speeches. “Who knows how many Jews died during this war, how many widows and orphans will be left behind? How can we be happy under circumstances like these?”

Many Satmar chasidim confirmed that the Rebbe’s compassion caused him to worry about the welfare of every Jew, no matter where they lived or what their religious affiliation and the Rebbe often proclaimed, “A Jew remains a Jew forever.”

“It is true that the Rebbe blamed the Zionists and the Israeli government for provoking the ire of the Arabs, placing Jews in the holy land in terrible danger, something that was clarified in the Rebbe’s writings. But to say that innocent Jews, who keep the Torah, observe its mitzvos and who are still sitting shiva for their children, that they are guilty of their childrens’ deaths? That is terribly wrong.”

Related Post:

Kiryas Joel Satmar Rebbe Says Parents Of Boys Murdered By Terrorist "Responsible" For their Deaths.

Comments

[Garnel Ironheart]

It's all a matter of timing. If the other Satmar had blamed the boys' parents and Zionism first this this Satmar would have condemned him. They both believe in what he said.

[the truth]

Could someone please clear something up for me,
Arron in his stupid rant that living in a place of, or near danger referring to the Arabs as murders etc, am I right so far ?
We all know that Neturai karta are an offspring of satmer and yet he let's and encourages some of his people to hug, shake hands, take them gifts, praise them, sit and meet with them, so it's ok for him to put his chassidim in danger, is this history repeating itself, like father like son, or is it just normal hypocrisy ??

[Flatbusher]

Satmar has a huge 'position' (they call it Shittah; please don't forget the last syllable) problem.

In this day and age, vs. the old Shtetl days when people were in the dark, you can't sell anymore this theological BS that Nazis put your grandmother into a gas chamber, because of Zionism.

Herzl believed that Jews have been murdered in Europe for hundreds of years and, if past is prologue, will be murdered in the future, because that is THEIR 'shittah' to murder Jews indescriminately.

He felt the only way to avoid the future murder of Jews in Europe was to enable Jews to have some control over their lives. Turns out he --- and Jabotinsky -- were right. THAT is a fact.

Satmar et al, after the war had huge problem how to deal with a HUGE mistake: their Rebbes and leaders could not admit that they were wrong and in some cases negligent.

They could not face the painful fact that their wrong decisions cost the lives of tens of thousands of their followers --- while most of the leaders bribed their way out --- in Hungary.

Hence they deflected their peoples hate into another area. Same way as the Arabs do now re the Jews.

Very sad situation. Hence the words of that rabid insensitive Jewish Antisemite Aron Teitelbaum.

[BronxJew]

@Flatbusher
Your suggestion that "most of the leaders bribed their way out --- in Hungary" is absolutely false. I am Hungarian on my mother's side and I can tell you that most rabbis in Hungary were murdered by the Germans along with their communities.
The fundamentalism and intractability of Satmar and its milieu are representative of the commonest faction of pre-War Hungarian Jewry.
Actually, the "Hungarishers" have gotten a bad rap for years owing to the idiocy of these extremists. I can state with confidence that most pre-War Hungarian Jews were honest and moral souls possessed of grace and a charming kind of fastidiousness. Their one fault was their tribalism, a trait attributable to their having lived for so long in a landlocked country with an obscure language. This tribalism led to a fair amount of social awkwardness when the Hungarians would run afoul of their co-religionists who were of a different nationality.
My mother used to refer to the anti-Israel Hasidic crowd as "bolond" i.e. screwy. My father - a Galitzianer who cringed at the very sound of the Hungarian language - used to call them "a bisheh-chlimeh" (א בושה וכלימה) i.e. a shame and an embarrassment.

[chaim36]

This statement is truly tragic. Coming at a time of shivah hurts even more. Let him get on the next plane and visit these parents and ask for mechilah.'Emor meat veaseh harbeh'.

[JACK]

Actually it should not come as a surprise what this criminally insane ignorant savage said,after all this piece of human garbage grew up in the mental asylum called Satmar,everyone knows what the late satmar rebbe writes in his Israel hating manifesto VAJOEL MOSHE,that there is no doubt in his mind ,the reason that six million Jews were gassed and burned during the holocaust was all the result of the sin of Zionism,in other words because the poor Jews having suffered for the last 1900 years of pogroms,expulsions,inquisitions ,forced conversions,finally decided they had enough and decided they wanted to go back to their God given Eretz Yisroel,and for that sin GOD had the Nazis gas and burn six million jews including one and a half million yidishe kinderlech,this is the evil garbage Aron Teitelbaum was brainwashed with,therefore why should it surprise us that this evil insane zombie blames the Zionists for the murder of another three innocent jewish children

[RWisler]

Thank you Bronx Jew and Flatbusher for the history lesson. Question: Were the majority of Jews in Hungary moderate in their Jewish outlook or did Teitlebaum and his ilk have the devotion of the majority of Hungarian Judaism. I would suspect the latter because of the high cultural and educational sophistication of Hungary (even though the language is extremely difficult and non-European).

[BronxJew]

@RWisler
Most pre-War Hungarian Jews were not Hasidic, did not follow a rebbe, and prayed according to the traditional Ashkenazic rite.

As was the case in much of Europe, Zionism was viewed negatively in most orthodox circles in Hungary. Nevertheless, there was an active Zionist movement including a network of Mizrachi Zionist orthodox schools in Hungary. Joel Teitelbaum once informed on the rector of a Mizrachi yeshiva in his locale, bearing false witness to sedition. The rector was arrested as a result and spent time in prison. So much for the Ninth Commandment.

The Hungarian ultra-orthodox rabbinate was chock-full of firebrands and radicals. The historian Dr. Raphael Patai wrote about Koppel Reich, the chief ultra-orthodox rabbi of Budapest, who regularly referred to the Zionists in his Sabbath sermons as "Klovim" i.e. dogs.

Hungarian Jewish culture was an anomaly: The "Status-Quo" movement, considered anathema by the ultra-orthodox, would nowadays be considered akin to American modern orthodoxy. The only feature of the Status-Quo movement which veered from strict tradition was the lack of partitions separating the sexes in some - but not all - of their member synagogues. But men and women still sat separately.

In his autobiography, conservative rabbi and holocaust survivor Dr. Mika Weiss writes that men and women sat separately even in the bona fide conservative synagogues of Hungary (not just the liberal orthodox Status Quo synagogues). The first time he ever encountered mixed seating was when he emigrated to the United States in the 1960's. He describes this new encounter with American Judaism as a culture shock.

Even the reform movement in Hungary leaned toward tradition in some cases. A friend of mine - a Bernard Revel Graduate School-trained historian - showed me a Hebrew book of responsa published in the early twentieth century which features the Halakhic queries posed by Hungarian reform rabbis and the learned answers they received from the decisors of their movement. Written in pluperfect rabbinical Hebrew, it's a real "sefer". One of the interesting queries in the book, as my friend showed me, was addressed by a reform rabbi to his teacher, inquiring about his congregants' state of ritual purity in view of the fact that they "only" immerse in the Mikvah once a year before Rosh HaShanah.

As for Yiddish, some Hungarian Jews only encountered the language in Cheder and in Yeshiva. Others spoke German at home. Some, like my mother's parents, spoke Deutsch-Merrisch (literally "German-Czech") - a now obsolete Western Yiddish that is highly Germanic. But if I had to estimate, I would posit that about a third of Hungarian Jews knew no Yiddish at all, a phenomenon which proved detrimental in the Nazi camps where they were unable to communicate with most other Jews.

[Michael-Meir]

BronxJew: thank you for the history lesson.

[Gevezener Chusid]

alot of "Hungasrian" Jews came from places that after WW I were no longer part of Hungary. There were (and still are) large Hungarian-speaking areas in Slovakia, Rumania, even Yugoslavia and most of the "Hassidim" came from those outlying areas. The Jews of the "Mamaland" - Hungary proper - were much more secularly knowledgeable, and for the most part spoke Hungarian, as BronxJew writes.

I had friends whose mothers learned Hungarian in Auschwitz becaue it was either sink or swim.

[ah-pee-chorus]

++ Joel Teitelbaum once informed on the rector of a Mizrachi yeshiva in his locale, bearing false witness to sedition. The rector was arrested as a result and spent time in prison.
Posted by: BronxJew+++

I don't think I've heard this before. Is there anyplace I could read more about it?

[Ali saidyS]

I fully agree with Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum.
My uncle was Jamil Baroody UN Ambassador from Saudia Arabia in 1967.
In June 1967 Israel launched an aggressive war against it Arab neighbors.
With the help of US Pilots the Zionists won the battle. As a result Israel occupied more Arab land. In the UN Security Council Jamil Baroody was quoting The Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum that the creation of The Zionist State is against the Torah Law and we have to make sure it ceases to exist. Most of the Arab states are moderate in nature but when it comes to The Holy Land we become adamant and we will resort to anything to liberate Jerusalem & Haram al Sharif The Temple Mount.
It will become exceedingly dangerous for Jews to live in Israel.
We propose that Jews go back to Brooklyn NY or to Hungary where they came from like the worthy Rabbi says. The creation of The Satanic State of Israel has caused more havoc than The Holocaust. We propose a smooth transfer of Jews to Europe, USA & North Africa under the UN auspices.
I give credit to Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum who speaks his mind.
I would like to reach out to him & work together on this project.
Insh Allah we will have a solution to this problem.

Ali Saidy

[Gary]

If you read one of the hagiographic works by one of the followers of Yoel, you will quickly realize what a strange person he was with many psychological issues even as a child. He would spend hours in the bathroom in the morning cleaning himself, clearly a case of severe obsessive compulsive disorder. The author, unaware of the psychopathology, praises this behavior. There are many other examples in the book as well. When I was a teenager I remember that most of my rebbai'm considered him both bizarre and a nut case (and I went to a right wing yeshiva not a modern one). It is only today many years after his death that that somehow he has been rehabilitated by the normative yeshiva world. I can't explain it other than that whole world has become more radicalized as time goes by.

BTW I also would like some cite to Yoel informing on another jew to authorities or is this just a rumor

[BronxJew]

@ah-pee & Gary
Teitelbaum's informing on the head of the Mizrachi school located in his district has been documented. In addition, the episode was known among the old generation of Satmerers.
I will let you know when I locate the source.

[noname]

@bronx jew
Re the status quo movemnt:
You write that the only difference was the (soemtimes)lack of the mechitza, but:

1. do you happen to know if how high the separations they did have were? Also what about the more ultra orthodox mechitzas? I've learned what R M Feinstein said about mechutzas in the US in the mid-century but always wondered when the ten foot high chassidish mechitzas were invented. (And what their halachic basis is).

2. what about secular education? did the status quo allow for that?

3. what about women covering their hair? I've often heard that this was not done in much of Europe and definitely not in non-chassidish circles but not sure about Hungary.

4. please add me to the list wanting a source for the false witness against the rector of the Mizrachi school.

[Moses Kestenbaum ODA]

As a follower of Reb Ahron i have to admit that my rebbi had abit to much gas in his belly when he gave this speech. BTW a little of the big picture is important, right before reb ahron gave this vile speech he had Peacenicks in his house, Peace Now was at reb ahrons house that morning, the rebbi refused to acknoledge them in any shape or form ,so maybee it rubed off on him abit, but deffinetly the rebbi ate to much cholent or some other gas producing foods before he gave this horrible apeech

[BronxJew]

@noname
Dr. Lázár Schönfeld, rabbi of Beth David Agudath Achim in the South Bronx, was a graduate of the Pressburger Yeshiva, held a PhD. in Classics from the University in Budapest, and was an acquaintance of Albert Einstein. Schönfeld was supposed to have served for a time as rabbi of a Status Quo synagogue in Nagykaroly, Hungary. He had also been chief rabbi of Vincovci, Yugoslavia. In New York, the Lithuanian rabbis referred to him as the "Rabbiner". Schönfeld was a strictly orthodox man.

As for the women covering their hair, a rabbi whom I knew who was a non-Hasidic native of Munkacs once told of the time during the First World War when he was passing through a Czech hamlet and went to the town well to draw some water. A woman with long braids was already there, drawing water for herself. The rabbi said that the townsfolk showed great respect to her, one of the men even offering to carry her pail back home.

It turned out that the braided woman was the rebbitzen of the town. Stunned, my friend the rabbi asked about her going about without a head covering. He was told simply, "It's not our custom".

[BronxJew]

@ah-pee, Gary & noname
See the following link:
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/01/the-satmar-rebbe-and-the-holocaust-continued-234.html

An Israeli historian wrote or is in the process of writing a work on the history of Satmar which includes the incident mentioned in the link which I had referenced.

[BronxJew]

It seems it was a B'nai Akiva chapter whose head Rabbi Teitelbaum had jailed and not a Mizrachi school. The misnomer was my mistake for which I sincerely apologize.