Jul 7, 2008
The difference between Neturei Karta and Satmar
The lines between Neturei Karta and Satmar are often blurred and unclear. Both are anti-zionist, and in general Neturei Karta is an offspring of Satmar. People commonly mistake the two and when Neturei Karta does something outrageous in public, often Satmar gets some flak.
Mishpacha (Hebrew) newspaper reported this past week on a protest in England that Satmar Hassidim were scheduled to take part in.The protest was to be against some sort of event in London celebrating the 60th anniversary fo Israel. The Satmar Rebbe had called upon his Hassidim to protest the event, as "we must remind everybody that Judaism is not necessarily Zionism, and that there are many who think that the establishment of the State was a rebellion against the kingdom of God that continues to this day".
He set rules however. Rules that included a stipulation that the Hassidim could only protest as long as they "would not be anywhere in the vicinity of Palestinian protestors, who protest for their own reasons, and definitely not near Neturei Karta protestors who make a tremendous chilul Hashem with their identification with the murderous Arabs and their disgracing the kannoim who are God fearing and Jew loving."They got the various licenses to hod their protest. After all the announcements and arrangements, the police called them up and told them, on the day of the protest, that they had decided that all protestors would have to stand in one area and it did not matter that they were protesting for different reasons.
The Admor of Satmar immediately put out announcements cancelling the protest, despite their having spread the word around all the Haredi areas on Shabbos.
So there you have the difference between Neturei Karta and Satmar. Satmar protests Zionism and what it sees as a rebellion against Hashem. That protest, however, does not allow one to join up with any other people just to achieve a certain goal. No chilul Hashem can be created in the process. While Neturei Karta people go and kiss people like Arafat and Ahmadinejad and praise them in their efforts to eradicate the Jewish people.
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Please note, he is NOT satmer.
ReplyDeletehe is only the son of the brother of Mosher Gabae, the gabei of the Zali fraction from satmar.
who is not satmar? the Admor? The article says this was Rav Aharon Teitelbaum, (one of) the Satmar Rebbe(s)
ReplyDeleteIt does not really make a difference whether Satmar protests together or not with the Palestinians. The fact that orthodox Jews demonstrate against Israel, gives the goyim the impression that the Jews themselves are against Israel. They do not know that one can be anti Zionist and yet believe in the right of teh Jews to EY.
ReplyDeleteThe Bakehila newspaper reported positively on the Satmar attitude and called the Golders Green jews who participated in the pro Israel event as " half-charedi" חרדים למחצה.
The same newspaper who has one of the most right wing approach to the conflict. Go figure.
Most people incorrectly equate Satmar with Neturei Karta. While the late and current Satmar Rebbes are the spiritual leaders of the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox they disagree with Neturei Karta in important ways.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1967 Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum condemned the tactics of the Neturei Karta which joined the Arabs in anti-Israel demonstrations saying, “Their enemy is not our enemy, their fight is not our fight.”
In 1964 some Satmar students were arrested for defacing Israeli consulate property. As leaders hurriedly raised money for bail, the Rebbe, ז״ל, instructed them to, “Leave them in jail overnight, it will do them good.” In 1970 he also barred members of Neturei Karta responsible for an offensive ad from the synagogue.
The Rebbe’s fight was against the Israeli government, certainly not against Jews. He traveled to Israel in 1959 and again in 1965 to urge his followers not to vote. He engaged people intellectually. He was a force to be reckoned with.
More recently in 1994 a group of leaders from the Yemenite Jews of America came to the NY JCRC with a problem. There was a historic opportunity to move the remaining Jews in Yemen to Israel. However, there were Neturei Karta operatives in Yemen who were convincing people to stay. Could the JCRC convince the Satmar to remove this obstacle?
After a discussion with some of the Satmar leadership Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum was consulted. Satmar leaders had duly researched conditions for Jews in Yemen and concluded that they were atrocious and dangerous. The Rebbe offered his assistance on two conditions. First, that the Yemenite Jews be resettled together in critical masses, as opposed to the usual resettlement technique of scattering olim throughout the country. Second, every child should be guaranteed an education in a Jewish Agency supported yeshiva approved by the Satmar. After some hesitation by Israeli authorities a method was found to comply. The Rebbe was able to contact some of the funders of the Neturei Karta and convinced them to withdraw. As a result, most of the remaining Yemenite community went to Israel.
News photographs of the major Pro-Israel Rally in Washington, DC on April 15, 2002 showed members of the Neturei Karta with Arab and Palestinian counter-demonstrators. The rabbinical arm of the ultra-Orthodox world published the following statement:
We wish to announce to the world that we have absolutely no connection or relationship with, nor can we understand those individuals who joined Arab demonstrators opposing the rally in Washington. They acted entirely on their own. Their way is not our way and it is well known that our President, the Holy Sage Rabbi of Satmar, does not agree with this tactic of opposing Zionism. (Central Rabbinical Congress of U.S.A. and Canada, 10 Iyar, 2002)
The Satmar Beth Din, led by Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, published a p'sak (http://www.jcrcny.org/satmar/
Satmar%20Court%20Denounces%20Neturei%20
Karta%2012-15-06-1.doc) in response to the attendance of Neturei Karta leaders at the Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran (ironically held on 21 Kislev)ruling, “Those few individuals who attended a special anti-Semitic assembly of deniers of the holocaust: themselves denied and diminished the magnitude of the wickedness and murder as well as the number of victims who died for the only sin of being Jewish; they have terribly desecrated the Almighty’s name all over the world, thus causing loathe and repugnance of acts of true anti-Zionism; and they are unfortunately on a downward spiral with acts of lunacy, unprecedented by faithful Jews who believe in the A-mighty."
If we believe as Satmar does that the Zionist are the ones holding back the Geulah then the tactics of the Neturei Karta are 100% correct. Please there is plenty of monetary support given by Satmarer Chasidim to the Neturei Karta. All the stories about the Satmar rebbe disliking the tactics of the Neturei Karta are vacant. They learnt these deplorable tactics from him.
ReplyDeleteIf Zionists are running to the defense of the Satmar political establishment of either party (Aroni or Zali), you have to assume something is fishy. Whatever the rationale for making the real chilul hashem by canceling a protest in a city of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, the fact is that Satmar leadership contradict themselves. On the one hand they claim to follow the teachings of R. Yoel, who called for opposing Zionism at every opportunity (see Divrei Yoel and Al Hageulah) and want to have a "separate" protest, but on the other hand HOW OFTEN DO THEY PROTEST AGAINST THE ZIONISTS BY THEMSELVES? Generally about once in 3 or 5 years UNLESS there is some specific issue that bothers them, and which would bother Agudists as well. So let's be fair in all of this. Let's not engage in a cover-up of the Satmar leadership. The fact is very simple: Satmar leadership do NOT want to create conflict with their Agudist (and Mizrachi) friends, and this is the main reason for their ongoing silence.
ReplyDeleteBy way of update: The Zalman Leib faction of Satmar issued an order to allow the children of R. Moshe Arye Friedman back into the school in Vienna after a whole year. They will no longer persecute that family.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, according to the teachings of the Torah as explained by the Satmar Rav, the Zionists are perpetrating one chilul hashem after the other in all of their actions, which surely includes killing, expelling, ghettoizing, etc. in the name of Klal Yisroel. Surely Satmar leaders want the world to know that the Torah forbids all these terrible actions of the Zionists for the past 60 years. Anyone know any different?
As far as I have heard, the reason that the Zalman faction issued the letter against those who traveled to Iran is that Agudist leaders threatened to cut off all affiliation with Satmar, especially in the area of hechsherim, which the Eyda in Jerusalem especially is heavily involved in. The result in the worldwide media was a terrible chilul hashem. People of all nations have a perfect right to express their feelings to analyze historical events any way they want. This is common throughout the world. What is strange is that the issue of World War II is taboo. Although this does not include whether Roosevelt etc. knew of plans to bomb Pearl Harbor.
ReplyDelete