Assembling a Timeline of Satmar Violence
Especially as it relates to the succession conflict. Chime in with all the information you’ve got — and please present good sourcing with it. This post will be in constant flux, as I add more information.
1970s - “in spring 1975 the Satmar hung an effigy of the Lubuvitcher Rebbe from a telephone pole. In the summer of 1977 and 1978 physical conflict arose between Lubavitcher (Crown Heights) and Satmar (Williamsburg) Hasidism over turf, over differing views of involvement in North American society, and over attitudes toward the state of Israel. And Belzer and Satmar Hasidism, two years later, clashed in the synagogue of the Congregation Belz over a similar ideological issue.” [Source]
1990 - “The conflict between the factions flared into violence in 1990, when Mr. Brach tried to install roll-down gates on the door of the synagogue. A brawl erupted in which three men were dragged from a car that was then set on fire, three police officers were hurt and hundreds of angry Hasidim poured into the streets.” These factions, though, at least according to the 1996 NYT story, were on different sides about the succession of Moses Teitelbaum, not his sons. [NYT]
In a conflict with non-Jews, “In 1990, tension turned to violence when 300 [Satmar] Hasidim protesting the arrest of a sect member on sexual assault charges demonstrated outside the 90th Precinct station house. Forty-five police officers were injured.” [NYT]
July, 1992 - “the beating of a 13-year-old Hispanic boy by a [Satmar] Hasidic man who had accused him of shoplifting prompted a demonstration by 75 Hispanic residents.”
September, 1992 - NYT reports on Kiryas Joel:
Troopers have had hundreds of calls from people who’ve been stoned, their house and car windows broken, their sidewalks stenciled with Hebrew profanities.
The arrested and convicted are loyal followers of the Satmar’s Grand Rabbi, Moses Teitelbaum. Victims are dissident Satmars who question the Grand Rabbi’s leadership. It’s grown so bad that two weeks ago troopers rode undercover on a school bus of kindergarteners in hopes of ambushing rock throwers.
[…]
Ben Zion Friedman, a dissident, says he twice was assaulted while praying at the temple, his glasses and hat thrown off. Two followers of the Grand Rabbi were charged.
[…]
Mr. Waldman refused to recant. In May hundreds of the Grand Rabbi’s supporters gathered on Mr. Waldman’s lawn, breaking windows. Ten troopers dispersed them.
[…]
[Weider] accused dissidents of provoking teen-agers to stone them. But this is not what the police say happened on Sept. 6. They say Yosef Hirsch, who runs a small dissident school, was driving kindergarteners home, when he passed one of the Grand Rabbi’s yeshivas. Mr. Hirsch’s bus windows have been smashed several times. The Grand Rabbi’s students began stoning the bus, say the police. The undercover officers jumped off and arrested two teen-agers. When a backup squad car arrived, the police say, it was stoned and a third teen-ager was arrested.
1997 - In Kiryas Joel, “Rabbi Joseph Waldman, a dissident leader, said that his car has been torched three times, that the windows of his house have been smashed and that one dissident was beaten brutally. He said that his six children were thrown out of the village’s main yeshiva, and that dissidents have been barred from visiting relatives’ graves in the congregation’s cemetery.
Village leaders say that the beatings and burnings were done by hotheads and that the other actions were taken by the religious congregation, not the village leadership, because of general disapproval of some dissidents’ behavior.” The NYT asserts this is part of a feud between pro-Moshe and anti-Moshe factions. [NYT]
September, 2001 - Brawling over the Succos holiday at Yetev Lev D’Satmar in Williamsburg, including a claim that the president of the congregation was “beat up” by Lipa Teitelbaum, as part of the Aaron/Zalman conflict. [NYP]
March, 2002 - David Ekstein claims he was kicked in the head by Lipa Teitelbaum during Saturday night services after he was denounces as a moser, and “Cops have responded to a half-dozen 911 calls to the temple in the past three months.” Aaron/Zalman conflict. [NYP]
October, 2005 - A brawl in Williasmburg on the holiday of Shemini Atzeres featuring “punches, slaps and beard-pulling,” and “Cops and witnesses said thousands were involved in the fight.” This came on the heels of a court decision that was seen as leaving the Aaroniks in charge of Yetev Lev, and a claim that the Aaroniks bused in 800 people to stake their claim to it. Aaron/Zalman conflict. [NYP]
April 25th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Steve, why not place a few phone calls to the Willamsburg NYPD precinct and the local KJ authorities? If the official spokesman or “community affairs” officer won’t dish dirt, I’ll bet you’ll be able to find someone from the rank-and-file to spill the good loshon hora. Just look at the NYPD discussion boards following the BP riot. There’s plenty of simmering resentment, especially among the ‘beat’ cops. They may want their names withheld, but they’ll open up.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Are you going after these guys because it is
(1) a good story of violence and drama
(2) you don’t like them because they are anti-Zionist
(3) you are on an ethics crusade
(4) you don’t like Hasidim
(5) other?
April 25th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Let’s face it, the problem is one of showmanship. The Orthodox are always touting how much better they are, I mean, their lifestyle is, compared to the ‘moral depravity’ of western culture and civilization. Especially this applies to ‘Chassidim’, who eschew much contact w/ the outside world, won’t shake a womans hand when offered as part of business indeed human ettiqute.
The reporter Steve, is shedding some light, the light of truth, that is all.
Kol HaKavod.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Tzvee - Because it’s an important story to get right.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Yeah, Mr. Altruistic Reporter.
Mr. Impartial.
Mr. Integrity.
Not.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
My all time favorite bit of Satmar wit. When the Lubovitcher Rebbe died, the Satmar paper ran a eulogy which ended with the words “Hamokon Yerachem Aleichem.”
(Traditionaly we tell dead people: The Lord will confort you. In this eulogy the Satmar punned it into The Lord pities you.)
April 25th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
There are two things that come to mind about that group.
First, I believe that 47th St Photo was, in some way or other, an important factor in the evolution of their public image… was it also important to their self-image? I don’t know. Certainly, it was an important economic factor which contributed to their financial situation, their sense of livelihood, and may have boosted or fueled their self-confidence.
Second, there was a continuing news story over time, about a strange rabbi who was a self-styled Pied Piper, who kidnapped a little boy he was supposed to just give bar mitzvah lessons to, but the rabbi made off with the kid and ‘disappeared’ him. I believe the rabbi may have billeted him in Kiryas Yoel. The little boy disappeared for a while, then, when he was made to reappear, he was a completely changed person who claimed he wanted to be a chassid. Problem: his mother was a secular Israeli. Wasn’t this story connected to the Satmar and Kiryas Yoel?
April 26th, 2006 at 4:49 am
The rabbi, who did time for kidnapping, was a self-styled returnee who was supported by some Borough Park haredim with Satmar a connection, but not by any Satmar official. I covered the story for Israel Shelanu in ‘91 or ‘92. A major aspect of it was the loveless life the boy, who was under 13 at the time, was leading in his mother’s house. Both parents are Sephardis, so neither is or was secular in the Western European sense. As far as the Satmar component in the story, it was marginal.
One missing elements from Steven’s enthusiastic “kick them when they’re down” tirade against Satmar is the common perception among anyone who has had actual contact with the movement, of its incredible charity works. It is outstanding even compared to other haredi movements, not to speak of non-Jewish groups. They run a vast network of support worldwide, and yet they manage to keep it out of the limelight.
For someone so critical of the Jewish Press for failing to dig beyond the surface of a story, Steven has been less than impressive in choosing the lazy reporter’s method of copying and pasting the reports on Satmar violence, and remaining blind, deaf and dumb regarding other defining characteristics.
Now, remember, I never worked for Satmar…
April 26th, 2006 at 8:35 am
>strange rabbi who was a self-styled Pied Piper,
Rabbi Shlomo Erez Elbarnes AKA Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans and leader of the Lev Tahor cult is not Satmar. He did prey on members of the Satmar community and misled various members of that community.
Two years ago, the Vaad Hoaskonim, the rabbinical council of Orthodox communities in Williamsburg, Boro Park, Monsey and Queens, N.Y., issued a ruling that Helbrans’ group “constitutes a great threat, spiritual and physical, to the Torah observant community in general and to every individual in particular.” It forbids the communities to associate with Elbarnes and urges his followers to leave him.
There are rumours that Satmar has put a hit on him. I tend not to believe that.
He has at various times claimed to be a great chasidic leader from a great chasidic dynasty. The truth is that he is a fraud. The Israeli media exposed him years ago as a chiloni who realized how to create a cult following by simply putting on a black hat and suit and growing a beard and payot and start making all sorts of false claims to being part of a great chasidic dynasty.
He recently obtained refuge status in Canada as he claimed persecution by the Israeli authorities for his anti-zionist beliefs.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Yori: Thank you for the details about the little boy. In the hands of a writer like IB Singer, who used to write for The Forward, it could have been written as a very poetic and almost magical story. Perhaps, for example, with Kiryas Joel not just being an American Shtetal, but instead, a portal into another dimension.
I think you have the wrong impression of Steven. He is not being hostile. He believes that the quality of Jewish Journalism could use some improvement. And I believe there is some merit to his conviction. What passes for JJ today is basically ’shopper/service’ publications, often weekly. This is a very 20th Century business model. This model is where the publisher provides space for Jewish tradesmen and professionals to advertise, and you can find a Jewish moving van company. As long as the publisher gets money from the advertisers, he can just fill in the space around the ads with some evergreens and a sprinkle of ‘news’ and make a living out of it. But this practice does not impel or encourage quality journalism. And many of them don’t want to expand onto the Internet for fear of losing their billboard clients who are providing their revenue. So, the Laws of Physics come into play: an object at rest, stays at rest. And there is a lot of inertia going on; but not much journalism.
As far as the Satmar, they’ve had some outstanding successes– like 47th St Photo– and they do extensive charity works, though, I believe, mostly to take care of their own (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But, at the same time, they’ve had this Dark Side with the violence. And if you cannot acknowledge that they’ve been a Mixed Bag with both the Good and the Dark Side, you are in Denial!
Why the violence? I don’t know. Maybe they don’t get enough exercise with sports or physical fitness. Don’t you think this should be explored? Maybe exploring their Dark Side could illuminate the reasons for the violence and then resolve this problem. In order to fix the booboo, sometimes you need to put a stinging antiseptic on it.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:43 am
button: We could probably go back and forth on the merit of presenting a full image of Satmar, both their incredible lack of tolerance, combined with an amazing capacity for giving (and not only to their own, btw).
But I believe the other note you introduced, regarding the quality of Jewish reporting, deems some serious discussion. In my view the economics no longer exist for legitimate Jewish journalism. And perhaps they never did. Any scandal investigation, any in-depth reportng requires a team, working over a substantial period of time. No one can afford it in J Journalism. So they turn instead to press-release-generated journalism, which is not necessarily bad. You get the PR piece, you send a reporter with his/her own digital camera and they do their best to shed light on the event, group, etc.
To say that the Forward or the J-Week are in the economic category that can afford to do better week-in and week-out s delusional.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:14 am
How do we measure Satmar good works v. Satmar bad works? Here is how civilization has decided the matter. No matter how many good deeds and works of charity a man performs, if he commits a criminal act and is convicted, he faces the penalty for that act. There is no offsetting balance sheet on this good green earth. Perhaps in heaven, but not on earth. So if one accepts the tenets of civilization (which I do not take for granted in the case of the subversive world of bloggers) the question here is whether Satmar has committed any crimes - individually or as a movement. On that I claim ignorance. I do find much of Satmar theology to be offensive to me - no actually I find it to be sick. They teach: All illness is due to sin. Zionism was the cause of the Holocaust, etc. So do works of charity atone for sick teachings like that? Do they counterbalance it?
April 26th, 2006 at 10:29 am
The Helbrans group operates a commune in the mountains north of Montreal, not far from Tosh-town. They have been accused of living a lifestyle not all that different from the old-line Mormon polygamists with their underage wives. The Chassidish community in Montreal has no affinity for these alleged pedophiles.
April 26th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Tzvee: I don’t believe we’re always examining social phenomena with the scales of good vs. evil. It is possible, in the civilized society you aspire to, to examine a broad span of events, people and things. We can also attempt a deeper examination of who it is, exactly, who commits crimes in Satmar, and who it is composing and issuing the ideas which so sicken you. What I objected to in Steven’s presentation was the selective and less-than-intellectually-honest manner style and content.
Did you really learn something new from it? Are you interested in learning something new? I don’t know, as you put it, it’s the world of bloggers where folks are often more interested in seeing their view overwhelm anyone else’s.
Incidentally, on the holocaust => Israel thing, you have to admit the 1947 UN resolution would have looked totally different if not for the shocking information which was at the time comng out about the camps.
April 26th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
While we’re on the subject, and while we have such august journalistic luminaries as Yori and Steve in the forum, why not do a little research into Satmar’s financial and real estate holdings?
The papers are all saying $500M is the magic number, but I’ve heard speculation that it could run well into the billions.
Nu? Let’s see some good old-fashioned investigative reporting, fellas!
April 26th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Tzvi writes: “No matter how many good deeds and works of charity a man performs, if he commits a criminal act and is convicted, he faces the penalty for that act. There is no offsetting balance sheet on this good green earth. Perhaps in heaven, but not on earth.”
Not true. Just ask Gordon Liddy, Elliot Abrams, or Chuck Colson. Or for that matter, Meir Soloveichik or Hersh Weinreb, who have no problem preaching the gospel with Colson.
May 1st, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Mr. Weiss-
Why not construct a timeline of all the charitable deeds that the Satmar community has done over the years? It wouldn’t be sensational? Most Satmars are not criminals, and should not be confused with Neturei Karta, either. As for Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, zechar lebracha!
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:44 am
Sergey - Because I don’t want to, and it’s less necessary. There are many resources in which Satmar charities are accounted for, but I couldn’t find a single list of Satmar violence. Moreso, charity work has relatively little to do with the ongoing conflict.
August 10th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Although not a Chasid, my father said, if you want to know how far a Jew has crawled away from G-d look at his level of hatred of Satmar. Just as every anti-semite finds mud to sling on Jews - just do a Google search on the timeline of violence, insanity, immorality and blood letting we Jews did, to see an example of what you are doing with Satmar. Why is it not okay for a non-Jew to do the same forum you are doing replacing the word Satmar with Jew, but it is okay for everyone, and I mean everyone, who feels their spirituality is not up to par, to try to “topple”a people who never touted that they were better, but just try to live it.