Moshe Teitelbaum

Moshe Teitelbaum (1988)

Moshe Teitelbaum , also Moses Teitelbaum (born November 1, 1914 in Máramarossziget , Austria-Hungary ; † April 24, 2006 in New York City ), was a Romanian - American Hasidic rabbi and as such the spiritual head of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community Satmar Hasidim.

Life

Moshe Teitelbaum was born in 1914. He lost both parents at the age of 11 and grew up with his grandfather and uncle Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. In 1944 he and his family were deported to Auschwitz , where his first wife Leah and their three children were murdered. He himself was transferred to the BRABAG plant near Tröglitz and later to Theresienstadt concentration camp , where he was liberated in 1945. He emigrated to the USA with his second wife, Pessel Leah. There he led the rebuilding of the Sigheter Congregation in the Boro Park district of Brooklyn , which he headed until he was appointed a Satmar Rebbe after the death of his uncle.

Since 1980 he has been at the head of the Satmar community, which originally came from Hungary . Most of the community lives in Williamsburg , New York , in a small town of its own called Kiryas Joel , in Monsey, in Boro Park and in communities in Israel , Europe and Argentina .

Succession

In recent years Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum has been the head of an increasingly divided movement. The conflict emerged when he appointed his third eldest son Salman Lejb as chief rabbi of the central Satmar community in Williamsburg in 1999, which was interpreted by some as an indication that he was chosen to succeed his father, and not Aron, who was the eldest son to then had been considered the most promising candidate. Since then, there have been repeated public and sometimes violent confrontations between the two brothers and their supporters. There are also several lawsuits pending for power in the movement, including community property, valued at around $ 500 million.

Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum left behind four sons and two daughters (a third daughter died in the early 1990s).

ideology

Satmar emphasizes the spiritual and social isolation from the non-orthodox society and culture and vehemently rejects Zionism in any form. The basic argument is the doctrine of the "Three Oaths" put forward in the K'tubbot Mischnatraktat , which King Solomon imposed on the "Daughters of Zion" (i.e. the Jewish people) in the Song of Songs. The Talmud explains this to the effect that the Jewish people must not move to the Holy Land as a group with the use of force and violence, they must not rebel against the governments of their host countries, and they must not delay the coming of the Messiah through their sins. In his VaJoel Mosche , published in 1958 , Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum expressed his opinion that Zionism violated the “Three Oaths”. Only the Messiah sent by God could bring a new Jewish government in the Holy Land, and every initiative on the part of the people to anticipate this through the re-establishment of Israel was a sin and of great danger for all concerned. Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum therefore warned urgently against any contact with the State of Israel and its representatives and called, among other things, to boycott Israeli elections. He went so far as to refuse to visit the Western Wall on the Jerusalem Temple Mount because it was liberated by the Israeli army. He saw in his rejection of Zionism a contribution to protecting Jewish life and avoiding bloodshed, and an expression of true love for the land of Israel, which he himself visited several times and in which large communities of his followers live. His conclusions from the rejection of Zionism, however, are not shared by large sections of Jewish orthodoxy .

children

Grand Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum and his second wife Pessel Leah had 7 children together:

• Chaya (died of cancer in 1993). She was the wife of the rabbi of the Satmar Group in the Borough Park, Brooklyn neighborhood.
• Grand Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum, the eldest son. After the death of his father in 2006, most of the parishioners made him a Grand Rabbi. Around 1965 he married his wife Sosha, the daughter of the previous chief rabbi of the Vizhnitz group in Bnei Brak , Rabbi Moshe Jehoschua Hager.
• Rabbi Chanaya Yom Tov Lipe, serves as the rabbi of his father's synagogue in Williamsburg.
• Grand Rabbi Zalman Lejb, after his father's death in 2006, was crowned as his father's official successor at his father's will.
• Rabbi Shalom Eliezer, serves as the rabbi in the Satmar Synagogue at 15 Avenue in Borough Park.
• Bracha Sima, wife of the chief rabbi of the Satmar Congregation in Montreal , Canada .
• Hendel, the wife of the Grand Rabbi of the Satmar Congregation in Monsey, which is in upstate New York and which is considered one of the largest centers of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in the United States.

literature

• Jüdisches Wochenblatt (Vienna), No. 69 (June 1, 2006), pp. 8–9: Ron Atzmon: Die Satmar Gemeinde. On the occasion of the death of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum bl. A.
• Teitelbaum, family of rabbis . In: Encyclopedia Judaica , 1972, Volume 15, Col. 908 ff.

Web links

• Andy Newman: Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum Is Dead at 91 , in: New York Times , April 25, 2006