YNet Satmar Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum this week lashed out at attempts to draft yeshiva students
and advance an equal share of the burden in Israel,
calling them "a decree worse than the annihilation of the Jewish people."
He went on to accuse the supporters of the move of being "worse than those who murdered us." [...]
A black cloud is
hanging these days over our brothers, the people of Israel living in the
Holy Land," the rabbi said. "A malicious govern
ment has convened… and
is seeking to uproot the Torah.
"Jews here don't understand the magnitude of this disaster,
which applies to every single individual," he added, comparing the
situation to the annihilation of the Jewish people.
"We, in the Diaspora, must be prepared for the moment when we
will have to rise up with all our might against this terrible decree so
that it is not executed, God forbid."
The radical
ultra-Orthodox leaders appear to be sharpening their tone against the
IDF draft recently. The other Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda
Teitelbaum, who visited Israel on the eve of the
Knesset elections,
stating
that "the draft decree aims to make us forget all the other troubles
Zionism has inflicted on us. We must fight it uncompromisingly so that
such ideas won't even cross their minds."
He referred to the State of Israel and its Zionist residents as "the
generation's Amalek," adding that "the Zionists came from the seed of
Amalek. There has never been such a sect that caused so much damage to
the Jewish people."
is this statement also to be doubted?
ReplyDeletePlease post this article, I think it is very relevant here...
ReplyDeletehttp://libibamizrach.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-am-not-chareidi-but-what-am-i.html
excellent article - calls to mind the expression "spitting into the wind."
DeleteIt seems to me that there is a silent majority... we need someone to pull us together and take the lead. We can't continue to allow ourselves to be hijacked by the extreme of the Chareidi world.... if that means pulling away and aligning under a new banner, so be it... I would suggest we call ourselves Yerai'im, and demonstrate that we are every bit as "frum" if not "frummer" than Chareidim. We are Machshiv Torah as much if not more, but unite under Deracheha Darkai Noam.
Delete@Torah Truth,
DeleteYour comments are leading in the correct direction. We need to define a new group that differentiates itself from a variety of contemporary irrational extremists, including Chareidi anti-Zionists who undermine the security of Eretz Yisrael, modern Orthodox feminists who promote destruction of Jewish families, and Chabad meshichists promoting a new form of idolatry.
However, the identity of the new group will not just be based on its adhering to a "middle" path. Satmar's extremely divisive political rantings disguised as "Judaism" are not only a terrible distortion of Torah principles but it also lacks any real intellectual apprehension. In effect Satmar and other Chareidi extremists are devolving Judaism into a primitive irrational belief system more similar to Islam than to the Judaism of our great philosopher rabbis like the Rambam and others.
So the "middle" group may also need to identify itself by its embrace of Torah true principles and philosophies derived from real intellectual apprehension.
We must restore a type of Chareidi rationalist Judaism that does not mindlessly embrace Western Enlightenment concepts like Evolution.
> He went on to accuse the supporters of the move of being "worse than those who murdered us."
ReplyDeleteWow. In one speech he dishonours all the victims of every massacre of our people and insults hundreds of thousands of Shomer Mitzvos Jews. Can't accuse the guy of inefficiency.
Or as Ben said, when there's enough of an outcry will it turn out he was also misquoted?
""We, in the Diaspora, must be prepared for the moment when we will have to rise up with all our might against this terrible decree so that it is not executed, God forbid."
ReplyDeleteSO this Rebbe of Satmar is acknowledging that the 3 oaths are not valid?
And it should be remembered what the original rebbe did in Hungary, in telling his many followers to stay there and not escape the Nazis. That included America for being a treife medina.
Also, not to visit liberated East Jerusalem , since it was liberated by a Zionist army. Thus, Satmar followers should not visit the Kotel.
Thus, Satmar followers should not visit the Kotel.
Deleteonly the really hard core satmars follow this one. i've seen them at the kotel. i used to live in quiryat arba and saw them in the ma'ara as well.
Hard core Satmars? Going to the Kotel is explicitly forbidden in על הגאולה ועל התמורה! The correct term should be mainstream Satmar. If, as you write, that there are Satmar chasidim who ignore the nonsense and slander in על הגאולה ועל התמורה- that would be welcome progress indeed.
Deletelet the brothers get their dispute out of arko'oys before opining on other matters. what a sick joke.
ReplyDeletehaving said that there are those in Israel who unfortunately wish to make their frum brethren frei. And the chareidim in israel love that excuse which happens to be true because they don't feel an obligation to fight which is a problem. one is not fighting for the tzionim, one is figting to prevent the destruction of all the yidden. a proper misgeret should be set up for those who don't learn 1o hours a day to do their basic duty for at least 3 months a year, the length of bain hazmanim to do basic training and then other forms of service. those who are serious learners should obviously be exempt. How to define srious learners though is the million dollar question.
Israel should care about what the Satmar rebbe thinks like Ahmedinijad should care about what I think.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of a conversation that I had last year with a co-worker who was brought up with an old school hashomer hatsair up bringing. He was also an avowed atheist. So he asked me if there is a G-d how can I explain that redemption could come to the Jewish people through the hands of heretics which he proudly admitted that the founders of the state of Israel were. I was thinking that the apple does not fall far from the tree. he is most likely descended from devout people who viewed the state of Israel as the opposite of redemption for that very same reason.
ReplyDeleteI would just like to wish everybody here including the Satmar Rebbe a hearty and fulfilling Yom Hazmaut!
> He went on to accuse the supporters of the move of being "worse than those who murdered us."
ReplyDeleteAnyone who say the above (i.e worse than Nazis), is a wicked evil person of outstanding proportions. BOYCOTT all Satmar and Eidi Chareidut business and hechshers until they adopt minimally reasonable tone of respecting their fellow Jews.
Don't you think that is a bit too radical.Please chill.
DeleteNo its not to radical. Its exaclty right. Besides being the sin of baseless haterd for which we are in exile 2000 years its is also the kind of talk that led to the assasination of Rabin.
DeleteThis talk of fellow Jews being AMALEK needs to stop immediately. The people who initiate this talk are Rashayim, but even so I would NEVER call them AMALEK. Amalek is the essence of pure evil and they and their seed need to be wiped from the face of the earth.
Rabbis should know what the obligation to wipe out Amalek is and therefore should never use the term for a fellow Jew. The fact that the Satmar Rabbi cannot make this distinction means he is not fit to lead any Jew, much less an entire Kehilla.
I realize I am mistakenly conflating Rav Sternboch's description of Religiouss zionists as Amalek with he Satmar Rebbe calling those he disagrees with Nazis, but in many ways their tone is equally destructive and leads to baseless hatred violence and divine wrath, rachmana letzlan.
Deleteshould not come as a surprise,as these jew hating ignorant savages,teach their children at an early age,that the six million jews killed in the holocaust happened because of the sin of Zionism,for wanting to create a jewish state,and all frum jews must pray three times a day for it's disappearance ASAP,and as long as the zionist entity is standing ,the messiah cannot and will not come
ReplyDelete@browser -"the six million jews killed in the holocaust happened because of the sin of Zionism":
DeleteThe claim that the European Holocaust occurred because of the sin of Zionism totally defies any logic or rationality - its clear that many anti-Zionist European Chareidi and non-Chareidi Jews were killed by the Nazis Y"S, while the Zionist and non-Zionist Jews in Eretz Yisrael survived the Holocaust and defeated their enemies (with Hashem's help of course).
Satmar ideologues are then forced to resort to some type of polytheism ("maaseh Satan") to explain the survival of the Zionist Jews in Eretz Yisrael.
IMO any claim that someone today gives as to why the shoah happened defies logic and rationality. i don't care if someone explains it as gilgul neshamot, because jews were anti-zionist, zionist, or anything else.
Deleteindeed the very idea that someone can claim to understand why God did what He did is foolish.
To Bartley Kulp: One could actually argue that the Hashomer Hatzair people, the real heretics of that era, had almost nothing to do with the founding of Israel coming about, considering they were Antizionist. So how does an antizionist of hashomer hatzair upbringing, the hashomer hatzair who opposed the founding of a Jewish state, come to view the present day Jewish state as the "redemption?" Truly ironic.
ReplyDeleteBut aside from that, a more inclusive reading of the history (inclusive in the sense that it involves looking at more than just the sources approved by the Labor Party who tried to rewrite the history when they took power and write their Revisionist zionist rivals out of Jewish history), would suggest that only due to the machinations of the Jewish Underground did the reality of a Jewish state come about. And in fact, many of them were religous Jews. The Irgun commander David Raziel (the one before Begin) was a Shomer Shabbos, and even under Begin, the Irgun as a matter of policy did not conduct operations on Shabbos unless in some case of emergency. The Lehi is known to have used the scripture regarding Amalek to motivate its religious fighters in attacks on the british. So one could argue very convincingly that religious and traditional Jews played a large role, even disproportionately so to their numbers in those early days, in the ousting of the British criminals and formation of a Jewish state.
What about Lechi and the Irgun is true. you are saying is true however it they who started the process. They were not the ones who broke ground here. They were not the ones who broke ground here. They were not the ones who drained the swamps and made the place inhabitable. Most of the people who made up the Irgun and Lechi were from Poland, not Russia. most of them came later during what was called the Grafsky Aliya and their numbers were much fewer at the time.
DeleteInstitutions like The Jewish Agency, Keren Hayisod and Keren Keyemet were well in operation before the Irgun and Lechi came on the scene. I am talking about institutions that built the infrastructure of what was to become the Jewish state. Indeed, they were dwarfed in their operational capacities compared to the Palmach and the Haggana. During the war of independence they went under Haggana command.
While it is true that actions more specifically from the Irgun probably led to an early evacuation of the British, without the labour Zionists there would have been nothing for the British to evacuate from. Nor would there be much of anything here to defend from the Arabs.
I also want to add to my response to Student V, that what you are saying about the Shomer Hatzair is nonsense. I just want to pint out that David Ben Gurion was not part of the Shomer Hatzair. He was actually terrified of them as he was of the Haggana officers. Most of whom came through the Hashomer Hatzair. The Hashomer Hatzir were way more hard core in their socialism and were spoiling for a fight against the powers that be than the likes of Wietzman and Ben Gurion. I also want to say that there was never a fundamental argument between Bengurion and Zeev Jobatinski regarding the end goal. That being the establishment of a Jewish State. It was mainly tactics.
DeleteIndeed it was Ben Gurion who declared independence against the advice and pressure from the US State Department.
What did I say about HaShomer Hatzair that was nonsense?
DeleteI never claimed Ben Gurion was part of that group. And that was precisely my point! They, the Hashomer Hatzair, were NOT the Labor Zionists (Ben Gurion, Weizmann et al were the Labor Zionist faction). Hashomer Hatzair were Antizionists who did NOT want a Jewish state. Where did you get ben gurion from, in anything that I wrote?
It was ben gurion of Labor Zionist faction (which was the Jewish Agency's de facto governing arm on the ground) that declared independence with encouragement and help from Begin.
My point about the Jewish underground is that having kibbutzim and social services in place doesn't produce sovereignty or national power. They - the underground - were the only ones who wished to "force the issue" and in fact they did. For all those who tout the fateful "UN Partition Vote" as the end-all-and-be-all of the founding of Jewish statehood (which I argue it certainly wasn't, and its importance is oversimplified and overinflated today), they neglect to acknowledge that the only reason the British even thought of referring the issue to the UN was due to the "Jewish terrorists." And even despite those pesky Jewish "terrorists" the British thought that the UN would refer it right back to them to decide. They bet wrong. That set the whole thing in motion. Then the occupation became unwieldy and obviously impossible to maintain - due to the "terror." The British left only begrudgingly. A Jewish mentality that saw no necessity for the British to leave would not have produced a Jewish state, no matter how many Keren Hayesod's and Keren Kayemets you have. So that includes the Labor Zionists too.
But certainly the antizionist Hashomer Hatzair member seeing a Jewish state as "redemption" is the grand historical irony that makes no logical sense at all.
Again, sovereignty means nothing if one does not have a place to be sovereign over. As for national power. I'll say this again. The Haggana and Palmach had much greater operational capabilities than the Irgun and Lechi put together.
DeleteAlso it was not those pesky Jewish terrorists who made the British flee faster than a chicken running through Ethiopia. It was that all hell broke loose between the Jews and the Arabs (The Irgun had little to do with this at that point)in Palestine the day after the partition vote.
Also your understanding of the various organizations is a little skewed. When you say Labour Zionist you have to know what that means. The Labour party went through various incarnations. The Hashomer Hatzair were affiliated with the MAPAM party which only merged with Labour in 1948. They were much more left leaning. They had a very clear vision of building a "kosher style" socialist utopia Jewish homeland.
"Again, sovereignty means nothing if one does not have a place to be sovereign over. As for national power. I'll say this again. The Haggana and Palmach had much greater operational capabilities than the Irgun and Lechi put together."
DeleteHagana and Palmach, under the command of Ben Gurion, the Labor Zionist faction. Joined by the Irgun and Lechi when independence was declared by Ben Gurion. These were the zionists, not the antizionists.
You fail to recognize the irony of a born-and-bred Hashomer Hatzair antizionist viewing the state of Israel as the "redemption" somehow, even though his ideological faction was fundamentally opposed to the founding of a Jewish state in those days!
If you really think the British left due to events which happened "the day after the partition vote" you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. They were already in the process of leaving, and as I said before, the Jewish underground played a major role, probably a highly disproportionate role to their size, in Causing the British To Refer This Issue to the UN - Because they had lost control of the situation.
“In the future, the land of Israel will bring
ReplyDeleteforth ready baked rolls and fine woolen garments” (Shabbat 30b).
Yes, that future is now accessible in a kanyon and /or supermarket in Israel, where ready baked bead and wooly jumpers can be bought off the rail.
There is complete confusion on this issue.Zionism means ten different things to ten different people.To some people it means the Israeli flag,modern Hebrew and a secular outlook.To others it is simply the protection of the Jewish residents of the state,support for the IDF and a rejection of secular law.There are Zionists who dress like the Satmar Rebbe and carry automatic weapons in Eretz Yisroel for protection.
ReplyDelete