This long and comprehensive article on The Satmar Rebbe is a must-read. It details his early life and infamous escape from Nazi Hungary on the Kasztner transport, organized by the Zionist leader of the Vaada, Rudolph Kasztner. As an undergrad at Sarah Lawrence College, I did extensive research on the Satmar Rebbe, his early years, his quest for his fathers post in Sighet, his escape on the transport, and his incredible transplantation of a very backward way of life in this deeply profane place of New York. I want to say I could have easily penned this, but this article has more material than my 29-page conference paper does. So read it! For those of you arguing this is a biased account and the author seems to have an agenda to paint him in the most negative light, consider this excerpt from my paper, which I properly footnoted was written by one of his many biographers: When Reb Yoel went to check out the mikveh tehara, the women’s ritual bath, he noticed little holes in the walls of the private rooms where women get ready to immerse in the ritual waters. He went to the local Orthodox authorities to request money for its renovation, but they refused, saying they cannot afford it. Reb Yoel was outraged at what he felt was an unacceptable compromise of tznius. He then called on a few of his people to come help him break the walls of the mikveh with axes, and then went back to the authorities requesting all the funds in the account to rebuild. They had no choice but to comply, since the women’s mikveh is an integral part of every Orthodox community. He promised to repay the money (I couldn’t verify that he did). Why and how did he become a revered leader despite all this? Charisma, charisma, charisma, and extreme piety. I also want to point out a few glaring omissions and minor mistakes I noticed in the piece: Reb Yoel did not immediately settle in Szatmar after his fathers death and his marriage to Chava Horowitz; he left Sighet with his new wife and went to live with his father-in-law, the Plontcher rav, in Radimislau, Galicia, for one year before he settled in Satu Mare. Also, when he originally came to America, he had every intention to return to Israel and resume, what he considered, holy work in establishing anti-Zionist Hasidic communities to counter the rampant secularization of Israel. However, the Hasidic people in America were looking for a strong leader to establish the religiosity they were used to back in Europe. The deciding factor seems to have been practical: when he visited Michoel Ber Weissmandel, who had set up a Hasidic community called Nitra in Mount Kisco, New York, Michoel Ber tore the Rebbe’s passport so that he could no longer change his mind and return to Israel. (this according to his biographer Dovid Meisels). But to me, the most glaring omission is the story we were fed year-round, and especially on Kuf Alef Kislov, the day of the Rebbes escape on the transport. I think the author should have included it, since its such an integral part of the Satmars understanding and justification for their Rebbes escape. Here is what I discovered in my research and wrote in my paper: According to Hanna Arendt, who denounced the criteria for the selection, the Satmar Rebbe was saved because he fit the criteria of those who worked all their lives for the community. But according to Satmar literature, and one that has been widely accepted and quoted by scholars like Yaffa Eliach, Joel Teitelbaum was saved by a miraculous dream. Rudolph Kasztner’s father-in-law, Jozsef Fischer, purportedly had a dream in which his late mother warned that if the Rebbe of Satmar will not be included in the transport, the entire transport will be doomed. Yaffa Eliach tells the story in her book Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, related to her by a Satmar Hasid. She adds further, in the words of the Hasid, that at first, the Zionist leader majority in the Klausenberger ghetto refused to include the Rebbe, but when Fischer revealed his dream, they agreed. It is impossible to verify the credibility of the story, since there are no documents supporting this account. The report Ms. Eliach cites, the Zoltan Glatz report from Geneva, dated February 10, 1946, is untraceable. Furthermore, even if this account were indeed true, it does not in any way justify the reality that the most ardent anti-Zionist—who warned his followers not to escape death with Zionist help—himself escaped via a Zionist organization. He not only willingly accepted the offer, but he had no knowledge, prior to his safety in Switzerland, of the reason he was chosen—a way to mask his escape under the justification of saving other Jews.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 14:58:48 +0000
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