Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Satmar Rebbe Passes Away

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Article is from NBCNY.com

NEW YORK -- Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, the spiritual leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect with tens of thousands of followers worldwide, died Monday at age 91.

Teitelbaum, the rebbe, or grand rabbi, of Satmar Hassidim since 1980, died at Mount Sinai Hospital, said community leader Isaac Abraham. He entered the hospital on March 30 and was being treated for spinal cancer and other ailments.

Thousands of mourners crammed into Teitelbaum's Brooklyn synagogue waiting for his body to be brought into the building's main sanctuary. Thousands more congregated on the streets outside; police sent hundreds of officers to control the crowds.


"I felt like I lost a father," said Leo Steinberg, one of those gathered inside the synagogue.

A burial was to immediately follow in the town of Kiryas Joel, about 45 miles northwest of New York City. Under Jewish law, the dead must be buried as quickly as possible.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who planned to attend the funeral, called Teitelbaum "a gentle soul who carried himself with poise and distinction."

"From the fires of the Holocaust, the grand rebbe and his uncle performed a miracle here in New York by rebuilding their community to match its glory days in Europe," Bloomberg said in a statement.

The question of who will succeed the rebbe as spiritual leader now looms high. Two of his sons, Aaron and Zalmen Teitelbaum, have been feuding over that question, and the next leader will inherit a group that has some 120,000 followers worldwide.

The job of a grand rabbi is hugely important to the sect because the rebbe serves as "an intermediary between his followers and God," said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College who studies Orthodox Jewish sects. "He is a father to thousands of people."

The rebbe gives advice on political domestic issues. "Followers come to him with all sorts of questions, which range from 'who should I marry, should I undergo this particular surgery,' anything that's important in a Hasid's life, they will check with the rebbe," Heilman said.

The grand rabbi also presides over the sect's schools, camps, a matzo factory and loan company.

The Satmars emphasize tradition and adhere to a strict dress code -- long skirts for women, long black coats, black hats and long beards for men. Marriages are arranged, and married women must keep their heads covered. The sect takes its name from the town of Satu Mare in what is now Romania.

Sect followers are so single-minded in their devotion to tradition they even oppose the state of Israel, because they believe that biblically Jewish sovereignty over the ancient Land of Israel can come only with the Messiah.

The Satmar Hasidic sect has between 65,000 to 75,000 disciples in the United States, 95 percent of whom live in New York state, said Heilman. There are large congregations in Williamsburg and Kiryas Joel.

The dispute over who will succeed Teitelbaum has been brewing for years. In 2004, a judge in Brooklyn refused to rule in the sons' dispute over the heir to the Satmar sect, saying the matter was for the grand rabbi to decide.

Teitelbaum had tapped Zalmen Teitelbaum to run the Williamsburg congregation and Aaron to take over the village of Kiryas Joel, but on the larger question of which one should prevail, the grand rabbi remained silent.

Ultimately, a will may resolve the dispute, Heilman said.

Besides a traditional will, Heilman said, Teitelbaum may have left a moral will that could leave his disciples a message or hint at who should be the primary leader.

The professor suggested that in the end there may be more than one leader, which he said would not be unprecedented among Jewish sects.

The Lubavitcher Hassidim have been without a leader since the death in 1994 of its grand rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who left no children and did not designate a new rebbe. And the death last year of the head of the Bobov Hassidim touched off a battle for succession between his half brother and a son-in-law.

Teitelbaum was born in Siget, in present-day Romania. He escaped Nazi persecution during World War II and came to the United States in 1946. Teitelbaum took over leadership of the Satmar sect from his uncle Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who died childless in 1979 at age 93. He took the formal title of rebbe the following year.

Joel Teitelbaum, Moses Teitelbaum's uncle, was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps during World War II before escaping to Israel and eventually settling in Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel -- named "Village of Joel" in his honor -- after the war.

The village was incorporated in 1977 and became the center of a legal battle over separation of church and state when lawmakers sought to create a public school district to provide special education programs.

Teitelbaum is survived by four sons, two daughters and dozens of grandchildren.

One of his granddaughters and her 5-month-old daughter were killed in 2000 in a fire ignited by candles lit for the holiday of Shavuot, a festival commemorating God's presentation of the commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.

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