"Will the real Satmar Chosid please stand up!"

Adventures in arkaos

This was the best I could do. Apparently chatGPT thinks that shtreimels come with peyos attached.

One of the joys of reading court opinions is that they cut through a lot of the noise, and summarize the facts in a way which would otherwise require vast amounts of resources. ¹

From Matter of Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar Inc. v Kahan 2004

Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum passed away in 1979. He left no sons. Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, a nephew of the deceased Grand Rebbe, was chosen a few years later as his uncle's heir and replacement. Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, who continues to serve as Grand Rebbe of Satmar to this day, was indisputably imbued with all of the authority and command of power that his predecessor enjoyed.

Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum has two sons who are prominent rabbis in their own right. Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum ("Rabbi Aaron"), the elder son, was appointed many years ago by his father to serve as Chief Rabbi of Kiryas Joel, a position which he holds to this day. He is known in his official capacity as the Kiryas Joel Rov (Rabbi).

Sometime thereafter, the current Grand Rebbe appointed his younger son, Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum ("Rabbi Zalman") to serve as Chief Rabbi of the Williamsburg community of Satmar and is thus titled the Williamsbuger Rov. According to respondents, Rabbi Zalman was also designated by the Grand Rebbe to be his father's eventual successor as Satmar Rebbe.

And then the split itself:

As a result of the latter appointment, a far-reaching feud erupted between the siblings and their respective adherents. As the polarization of the two sides escalated, Satmar Chasidim began to be identified as either Aaronis or Zalis depending upon to whom they pledged their allegiance.

The polarization has so insidiously divided the two camps to the point that they each [*4]dispute the other side's legitimacy to be identified as true Satmar Chasidim. Control of the of the Congregations' synagogues, cemetery, assets, charitable, educational and religious institutions and even its corporate name has been hotly contested both in and out of the judicial forum.

Things came to a head when the 2 factions claimed control. And they referred to each other as dissidents.

According to petitioners, a significant event that served as a catalyst which escalated this longstanding litigation took place in December 2000. It asserts that all the elected members of the Congregation's board of directors were directed by an unelected group of rabbis to either resign their positions or sign a document ceding their authority to those rabbis. Upon their refusal to accede to either ultimatum, a new "shadow" board of directors, described by petitioners as "dissident members" in violation of the Religious Corporation Law, was set up by respondents.

….

According to respondents, the genesis of the dispute was spawned by the Grand Rebbe's appointment of his younger son Rabbi Zalman Leib to the position of Williamsburg Rov. Evidently, this appointment has been perceived by the community to also be a designation of Rabbi Zalman Leib as heir apparent to his father's position as Grand Rebbe. A group of people of whom respondents refer to as dissidents, including certain members of the board and others who were partial to the Grand Rebbe's older son, Rabbi Aaron but in opposition to the younger Rabbi Zalman Leib, were angered by the Grand Rebbe's appointment and consequently launched a rebellion against the Grand Rebbe and most of the remaining board members. This roster of "dissidents" included… Respondents assert that most of the aforesaid individuals were not even members of the congregation. Another individual, ..whom respondents described as a convicted felon and federal prison escapee and who was also not a member of the congregation, actively joined and enthusiastically participated in the rebellion ²

And then Judge Barasch gets down to business:

If this was Hollywood, then in a manner reminiscent of the old "To Tell the Truth" television game show, the audience or, in this case, the Court would await that golden moment for the emcee Bud Collyer to announce:

"Will the real Satmar Chosid please stand up!" But sadly, this not a Hollywood script. It is an unfortunate real life nightmare that has effected a significant population of Chasidic individuals who aspire to be true to their faith and perpetuate the Satmar legacy as founded and promulgated by their late, great leader Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum and continued to this day by the current Grand Rebbe, Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum.

So who wins? No one. Basically, the fight boils down to who the real satmar is. And that depends on a whole bunch of other religious stuff. And at least in America, the 1rst and 14th amendments mean courts pretty much can’t say anything at all about that.

[I]n order to determine who is member of the Congregation and thus eligible to vote, the Court would have to look to Article 3 of the bylaws entitled How to Determine Membership. As relevant, it reads 1.The following criteria determine whether a person can be accepted as a member of the Congregation:a.If he keeps the Sabbath as prescribed and does not intentionally transgress anything that is forbidden in our Holy Torah. .If he generally conducts himself in the ways of the Torah and educates his children in the ways of the Torah and his wife does not go in public with her hair exposed.

As evident, determining whether anyone meets the above criteria requires ecclesiastic and not secular prowess. Likewise, in subdivisions c and d of Article 10 referred to above, the grounds upon which a member must be expelled from the Congregation would also require ecclesiastic determination. Since the questions of who are appropriate members of the [*14]Congregation and who are the original officers entitled to call for elections are hotly contested, this Court appropriately declines to don a rabbinical Shtreimel and ecclesiastical garb in order to make those determinations.

Justice Barasch included a rather scathing “epilogue” where he writes:

Throughout the litigation of these actions and pendency of the motion, there have been many incredible and outrageous attempts by certain individuals purportedly involved with and/or close to those involved the factional Satmar dispute to discredit, intimidate and improperly influence this Court. We think it would behoove the District Attorney of Kings County or any other entity charged with such authority to investigate and take every appropriate action against those involved in such activity.

Expenditure of vast sums of money and the exercise of enormous power have been the hallmarks of the above fight which have resulted in the following:

Continuous hearsay claims of bribery throughout the course of the many hearings published on internet chatrooms sites, in newspapers and phone calls.

An individual who purports to be a pious members of Satmar in the forefront of the factional dispute is a former convict who served time in Federal Prison for swindling and may now still face other criminal charges. He has inundated the fax to our Chambers and to top officials throughout the State and the Office of [*15]Court Administration with false, incredible stories claiming "deals" "bribery" etc. involving this Court and its staff.

.Retired judges, and other high profile attorneys were retained, not all for substantive purposes but rather for window dressing and in order to present an aura of the ability to legally maneuver the case in their respective favors. One such individual, who never appeared to argue substantive law, once stood up and asked to make a sealed motion for the Court to recuse itself. When the Court demanded that he state on the record the basis for his request, he responded that it was based upon double hearsay allegations that a tabloid newspaper was inquiring about. Some ten months after making that request, he has yet to file such a motion. This individual had failed in his several previous attempts based upon spurious grounds, on both administrative and appellate levels, to move this case to another Judge.

There is little doubt that the motivation of the individuals responsible for the acts described herein is to intimidate the Court and prejudice its decisions. False accusations concerning members of the Court's chambers have been published by fax, on the internet and members of the staff's family have been harassed at home as well. Chambers have been daily inundated by calls from individuals using pseudonyms and falsely claiming to be reporters or attorneys who are tangentially involved in the case seeking information.

Those who would hopefully investigate this matter should note that there are judges who would prefer to decline any assignment involving members of this group of litigants. The integrity of the Judiciary must be preserved.

And, in what seems like the ultimate shtuch, there’s this gem of a footnote:

Footnote 2: It is axiomatic among Orthodox Jews that Jewish law as codified by the Shulchan Aruch; Choshen Mishpat 22,26 demands that disputes among Jews be adjudicated by a Jewish court referred to as a Beth Din unless permission is obtained from the Beth Din to submit the controversy to a secular court. In Jewish tradition, the failure to comply with these rules constitutes a Chilul HaShem [desecration of G-d's name] and could subject the violator to severe penalties including excommunication from the Jewish community. Indeed, under Article 10 of the Congregation's bylaws entitled Rights and Obligations of the Members, a member's declination to appear before a Beth Din or abide by its verdict is a grounds which mandates the member's expulsion from the Congregation. Despite numerous attempts at having the disputes submitted to a Beth Din, no agreement could be reached by the parties in that regard and hence, despite the gravity of the offence, this matter has continued before this Court.

1. I should note that the case was appealed, all the way to New York State’s highest court. The outcome stayed the same, but at least some of the judges along thought that the case was a more of fight over property than anything having to do with religion. Justice Smith expressed his concern that by not ruling, the court was simply setting up a situation where כל דאלים גבר . See here. “Non-justiciability implies that the party having the burden of proof loses; thus it is ordinarily a "defendant wins" rule. It will inevitably produce arbitrary and inconsistent, and sometimes perverse or unjust, results. Here, for example, the Kahan faction is the defendant, and therefore wins, because the status quo is in its favor — it is in de facto control of the Brooklyn Congregation. But if members of the Friedman faction had somehow succeeded in occupying the Congregation's offices, and the Kahan faction sued to evict them, presumably the majority would say the case is still non-justiciable and the Friedman faction, being the defendant, would win.”

And this:

“Courts are sometimes most necessary when the parties to a dispute are at their most passionate and irrational. In such cases, the prospect of the parties resolving their differences in court may be unattractive, but the thought of their resolving them elsewhere may be less attractive still. I therefore think that courts should, where they possibly can do so, accept jurisdiction in cases like this, and I dissent from the majority's decision to decline jurisdiction here.”

2. I omitted a whole bunch of names where the ellipses are. My point really isn’t to ba’shmutz anyone. I have no idea if there was or wasn’t a hetter from a beis din or which side got one. I’m simply fascinated and amused by the spectacle. The names are mentioned in the linked cases if you care to read them.