“Of course we follow the injunctions regarding the wearing of fringes, and not trimming the beard, and the division of the sexes, because Torah requires it. One of the latter is the yeshiva of the Novominsker Rebbe, a stately, well-proportioned, high-ceilinged brownstone, through whose large windows can be seen shelves on shelves of great, black-bound folios, and the heads of the old men nodding over open volumes. we have several different groups (sects) mostly living in outremont. When the projected community is completed, it will house five hundred families, their stores, community activities, and workshops.

If the New Satmar is successful, it will, nevertheless, move only about a third of the Satmar Rebbe’s families out of Williamsburg. We know that God created man out of a lump of clay, and gave him life. Exact plans and dates are vague since the Rebbe has not revealed them to his followers, but it is expected that building will begin this coming February. The Magyars who ruled the town before 1918 and, under Hitler’s auspices, during World War II, called it Szatmar-Nemeti. (Refusal to recognize Israel made necessary some peculiar arrangements for Rebbe Teitelbaum’s recent visit to Israel. It was a question of emphasis more than theology: “Modern American Orthodoxy,” he said, “tries to find ways of adapting religion to modern society. . But your son is brought up to play with non-Jews, to have social relationships with them, to think of them as being no different from himself. But you trim your heard, cut off your The Satmar congregation does exactly what their Rebbe says, and it does only what he says they may do. Aha! A constant appeal for funds is made, and the members, even the indigent ones, often accept heavy financial sacrifices in order to give to the support of the religious, educational, and charitable purposes sponsored by the Satmar Rebbe. The Rebbe’s followers, however, argue that, “Only in this way can we really embarrass the Zionists. The reporter was treated, in a visit to the Satmar school, to a demonstration by the eighth grade girls’ class of its science knowledge. While most of the streets look to be uni-racial, certain blocks appear to house a mixture of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and “whites.” One block of Driggs Street, for example, is white on one side, colored on the other.The Hasidim are not alone in Williamsburg in their passion for the strict interpretation of the revealed word. Teitelbaum survived the Holocaust and made his way to America after the conclusion of the war, settling in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. The Klausenburger Rebbe, Y. Y. Halberstam, who was active in the German DP camps after the war, refuses to accept Rebbe Teitelbaum’s leadership or views on Israel. The Rebbe himself, the only source of definitive information, was in Israel. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not and will be deleted. And she was a Satmar, a member of one of the world’s largest, most powerful groups of Hasidic Jews. “And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go.” He pointed to his full beard, his “You,” he pointed again to the reporter, “are a Jew. The little girls, from two to ten, are playing on the stoops and pavements, and mothers lean out of upper-story windows to call to their children or watch the passing scene. The Satmar congregation in Williamsburg served as a magnet for hundreds of Hasidim whose own Rebbes had been killed by the Nazis. These are, outwardly, in as good repair as the homes in any middle-class neighborhood of Brooklyn or the Bronx. Joel refused to accept the decision and, after overcoming strong community resistance, ultimately succeeded to the leadership of Satmar. Controversy erupted on Tuesday night after thousands of people in Brooklyn The Satmars are adherents of Hasidism, a mystical branch of Orthodox Judaism with dozens of different groups that often reject modernity and closely adhere to the teachings and rulings of their rabbi-leader, or rebbe.The Satmar dynasty was founded in what’s now Satu Mare, Romania, by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum in 1905.