Satmar

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Satmar Synagogue in Jerusalem

Satmar ( Hebrew סאטמאר, also סאטמר; Yiddish סאטמאר satmar ) is a Hasidic group (“court”) founded by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum in 1905. It is named after its place of origin, the city of Satu Mare (German Sathmar ), which at that time belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary and is now located in the far northwest of Romania . After the Holocaust in World War II , the sect was re-established in New York.

history

On February 15, 1904, Hananiah Yom Tow Lipa Teitelbaum , Admor of the Hasidic sect in Marmaroschsiget, died . His older son, Haim Zwi, inherited his job. A small group of his followers considered the second son, Joel, to be his rightful successor. Joel left Marmaroschsiget; after staying with his father-in-law in Radomyśl Wielki, he moved to Satu Mare ( Yiddish : Satmar, Satmer ) on September 8, 1905 . There he gathered followers, and after a short time he called himself Rebbe von Satmar.

In the spring of 1911 Haim Zwi Teitelbaum was appointed rabbi of the city of Ilosva . In 1920, as a result of the Treaty of Trianon , the northeastern part of Hungary - the base of the Sigheter sect - was divided between Romania and Czechoslovakia. Many Hasidim in the ČSR could no longer travel regularly to Haim Zwi's “court” in Romania and turned to Joel. Haim Zwi died in 1926. He was officially inherited from his 14-year-old son Jekusiel Jehuda; but almost all Sighet Hasidim became followers of the Satmar Rebbe, who now had a large following.

Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, founder of the Satmar group in the United States

In 1944, Joel Teitelbaum was rescued from deportation to a concentration camp by the Kasztner train . On September 26, 1946, he moved to New York. There he began to rebuild his sect, which was badly affected by the Holocaust. In April 1948 the Kahal Jetew Lew d'Satmar was founded, the group's official organization. In contrast to the legal situation in the ancient Jewish communities in Europe, the Satmarers and other Hasidic movements in the United States were able to establish their own independent associations. The statutes of Kahal Jetew Lew recognized Joel Teitelbaum as the lifelong spiritual leader of the community. In 1968 the Satmarers were the largest Hasidic sect in New York with 1,300 families.

In 1979, Joel Teitelbaum died and was succeeded by his nephew Moshe Teitelbaum . Since his death in 2006, his sons Aaron and Salman Leib have been fighting over the inheritance. Both claim to be the rightful successor as Rebbe; Salman is the chief rabbi of the large Satmar congregation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn , and Aaron's center is Kiryas Joel .

Following

The followers are known as Satmar Hasidim. The largest number of the following resides in Williamsburg , Brooklyn, New York City, followed by Kiryas Joel, New York, Boro Park (Brooklyn) and Monsey, New York, as well as other ultra-Orthodox metropolitan areas. In 1990 there were 23,000 students in the training institutions of the Satmar Hasidim: 19,000 in the USA, 2,000 in Israel, 1,000 in Great Britain and a further 1,000 in Austria, Belgium, Brazil and Argentina.

In 2006, sources claimed that the Satmarers had 119,000 followers - including women and children - making them the largest movement in Hasidism today. The sociologist Samuel Heilman had given a similar number, 120,000. The anthropologist Jacques Gutwirth, however, wrote in 2004 that there are only 50,000 members in the Satmar congregations worldwide, including Hasidim and their family members. The sect has approximately $ 1 billion in assets in the United States.

ideology

The main feature of the Satmar Hasidim is their strict rejection of Zionism . They are of the opinion that only the Messiah sent by God has the right to establish a Jewish state. Joel Teitelbaum was a representative of Hungarian ultra- orthodoxy (not to be confused with general ultra-orthodox Judaism ), a movement that emerged in the 1860s. Led by Rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein (1815–1894), the ultra-orthodox categorically rejected any kind of acculturation and modernization . They directed their attacks not against liberal neologists , but against Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer von Eisenstadt , one of the founders of modern orthodoxy. Lichtenstein's followers were forced to use unhalachic sources to promote their strict worldview and turned to the Aggada . Teitelbaum's Opus Magnum, WaJoel Mosche - “And Mose consented”, which, like many rabbinical works, has a biblical quote as the title ( Exodus 2:21) and also contains a play on words with the name (Joel), confirms that any attempt to end the exile of the Jews before the arrival of the Messiah is forbidden by the “Three Oaths”, an aggaditic text in the K'tubbot Mixed Nativity . Therefore, according to Teitelbaum, Zionism is a serious heresy . The rabbi was a lifelong opponent of the Zionists and the State of Israel.

He and his successors were chairmen of Edah HaChareidis, a strictly anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem, although none of the previous rabbis had lived permanently in Jerusalem; this tradition ended in 2006 with the death of Moshe Teitelbaum.

The world author Hannes Stein argues that the lack of clarity and the rejection of secular courts make the sect vulnerable to crimes such as child abuse.

Literature and films

  • Israel Rubin: Satmar. An island in the city. Quadrangle Books, Chicago 1972.
  • Deborah Feldman : Unorthodox. An autobiographical story . Secession Verlag für Literatur, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-905951-79-0 .
  • The 2020 four-part Netflix series, titled Unorthodox, is based on the book by Deborah Feldman .

Web links

Commons : Satmar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dezső Schön: Istenkeresők a Kárpátok alatt: a haszidizmus regénye . Múlt és Jövő Lapés Könyvk, 1997, pp. 286–287.
  2. ↑ Yitshak Yosef Kohen: Ḥakhme Ṭransilṿanyah, 5490-5704 . Jerusalem Institute for the Legacy of Hungarian Jewry, 1988. OCLC 657948593. pp. 73-74.
  3. ↑ Yehudah Shṿarts: Ḥasidut Ṭransilvanyah be-Yiśraʼel . Transylvanian Jewry Memorial Foundation, 1982. OCLC 559235849. p. 10.
  4. ^ Israel Rubin: Satmar: Two Generations of an Urban Island . P. Lang, 1997, ISBN 9780820407593 , pp. 45-48.
  5. ^ Jerome R. Mintz: Hasidic People: A Place in the New World . Harvard University Press, 1992, ISBN 9780674041097 , p. 31
  6. ↑ Matter of Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar Inc. v Kahan . Decided on October 22, 2004 Supreme Court, Kings County.
  7. ↑ Jerome R. Mintz: Legends of the Hasidim. University of Chicago Press, 1968, ISBN 9781568215303 , p. 42.
  8. ^ Joseph Berger: Divisions in Satmar Sect Complicate Politics of Brooklyn Hasidim . New York Times, July 5, 2012.
  9. ^ Andy Newman: Dispute Over Rabbi's Successor Heats Up . New York Times, April 25, 2006.
  10. ^ George Kranzler: Hasidic Williamsburg: A Contemporary American Hasidic Community . Jason Aronson, 1995. ISBN 9781461734543 . Pp. 23-24.
  11. ↑ a b Michael Powell. Succession Unclear After Grand Rebbe's Death . Washington Post , April 26, 2006.
  12. ↑ Associated Press . Moses Teitelbaum, 91; Rabbi Was Spiritual Leader of Orthodox Sect . Los Angeles Times , April 25, 2006.
  13. ↑ Jacques Gutwirth: La renaissance du hassidisme: De 1945 à nos jours . Odile Jacob, 2004. ISBN 9782738114983 . P. 69.
  14. ^ Zvi Jonathan Kaplan: Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, Zionism, and Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy . Modern Judaism, Issue 24, No. 2 (May, 2004). Pp. 165-178
  15. ↑ Hannes Stein: The parallel world of the ultra pious child molesters. Die Welt, November 14, 2014
  16. ↑ Unorthodox | Netflix Official Site. Accessed April 30, 2020 (English).