Friday, October 14, 2022

When the Satmar Rebbe R' Yoel z"l Was Ready to Join and be the Leader of the Agudah in Yerushalyim

 


by Menachem Keren-Kratz reprinted from the Academia Blog 

  Betraying the Family’s Mesorah For a Rabbinical Position in Jerusalem

In 1932 Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld (1848-1932), chief rabbi of the Charedi community Va’ad Ha-ir Ha-ashkenazi (later known as Ha-edah Ha-Charedit) of Jerusalem, was on his deathbed.

 The community’s political leader, Rabbi Moshe Bloy (1885-1946), traveled abroad to seek a suitable replacement for the charismatic and revered rabbi. After considering several options, he declared Rabbi Yosef Zvi Dushinsky (1867-1948) of Chust to be the most suitable candidate. Later that year Rabbi Dushinsky was summoned to Jerusalem to meet the heads of Va’ad Ha-ir Ha-ashkenazi prior to their final decision. During his visit Rabbi Sonnenfeld passed away, and Rabbi Dushinsky was immediately offered the position.


Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was very familiar with Rabbi Dushinsky, whose town, Chust,
was located nearby Orshiva, where he had served as chief rabbi for 15 years. 

The fact that the leaders of Va’ad Ha-ir Ha-ashkenazi preferred a Hungarian rabbi from the same area as his, and someone he considered he could match and even surpass, drove Rabbi Yoel to action. He immediately decided that he was not going to let this opportunity of becoming Chief Rabbi of Va’ad Ha-ir Ha-ashkenazi in Jerusalem slip through his fingers.

Achieving this goal, however, involved compromising some fundamental
principles set both by his forefathers and by other prominent Hungarian rabbis. Although later on in his life Rabbi Yoel had frequently articulated his obligation to maintain the religious heritage (Mesorah) of his ancestors, this visit in fact constituted a breach of that tradition. His father, his grandfather, and even their ancestors had always refused to set foot in the holy land and had certainly never considered the idea of settling there.

Moreover, the position in Jerusalem entailed not merely the rabbinical seat of Va’ad Ha-ir Ha-ashkenazi but also chairing the rabbinical seat of Agudat Israel’s branch in the holy land. This meant that not only would he have to turn against the family tradition, he would also breach the highly publicized ban that the Hungarian rabbis had declared on Agudat Israel for actively supporting Charedi settlement in Palestine. Moreover, Rabbi Yoel himself was one of the most prominent participants at the rabbinical assembly that gathered in the town of csap (Čop) in 1922 and issued that ban.

Disregarding these considerations, Rabbi Yoel sought to convince Agudat Israel’s leaders that he was the right person for the job and set out to prove that he was not the zealot everybody conceived him to be. Thus, when a conference deliberating on Charedi immigration to Palestine convened in his hometown Sighet, to everybody’s surprise Rabbi Yoel sent the assembly his blessing for the initiative:

"As for the initiative of many haredim in this region who gathered and decided to settle in the holy land and to make a living there from their fields and vineyards [...] from the depths of my heart i bless them that the Lord, Blessed Be His Name, will lead them in righteous ways and that he will allow them to show his greatness and to demonstrate the mercy of God."

By so doing he signaled to Agudat Israel that he was prepared to adjust his rulings according to need.

Arriving in Palestine shortly thereafter, Rabbi Yoel made his way through the political corridors of the Charedi community in Jerusalem. He had to handle himself with great political care. when he spoke in public or gave interviews to the local press, he struck a relatively moderate tone. 

For example, when asked how, after banning Agudat Israel in Transylvania, he now sought to become its chief rabbi in Palestine, he replied that what he had said in the past in the Galut—the diaspora—was irrelevant to the reality of life in the holy land, to which other rules applied at the same time, but in closed meetings with his supporters, he urged them to establish an independent orthodox organization unassociated with Agudat Israel.

To demonstrate his financial acumen he opened a butcher shop selling imported meat slaughtered out of town (the halachic term: shechutei chutz) posed a halachic issue that occupied many rabbis in the past, 

When Rabbi Yoel served as chief rabbi in Orshiva, he had fought fiercely against remote communities that sold such imported meat, condemning them as if they were selling treife however, in this case, in order to serve his short- term interests, Rabbi Yoel allowed the sale of imported kosher meat at half the market price. Thus he denied the local slaughterers the wages entitled to them according to his own halachic ruling.

On top of that he introduced yet another novelty. 

For many decades both Chasidic and non-Chasidic immigrants originating from the same district as Rabbi Yoel’s had prayed together in the same synagogue.

Violating yet another long-standing tradition, Rabbi Yoel encouraged the Chasidim to found their own synagogue and even contributed a substantial sum to that end. He hoped that this synagogue would become a nucleus around which he would be able to establish his political power base.
These measures impelled his Chasidim into action, and their activists took to the streets of mea shearim signing petitions to appoint Rabbi Yoel as chief rabbi of Va’ad Ha-ir Ha-ashkenazi.

Rabbi Yoel’s supporters continued their efforts even after he returned to Romania. 
At some point they even spread false rumors that Rabbi Dushinsky had relinquished the position and sent Rabbi Yoel a formal letter of appointment, written in gilded letters. 

Despite these many efforts,  Rabbi Yoel was not appointed to the position and consequently ceased to support the synagogue and congregation he himself had founded. 

This episode demonstrates that Rabbi Yoel was even willing to disregard his own halachic rulings in order to gain an important political position.
in 1934 Rabbi Yoel finally secured the position of Chief Rabbi of Satmar

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow how do you bake these articles is it stone baked? And shchutei chutzpah is regarding kadshim and the beis hamikdash so please keep your drivel

Dusiznies said...

5:42
"Shchutei Chutz" which you the big amm haaretz sarcastically calls "Schchutei chutzpah" has taking on a different meaning in Europe where all poiskim without exception including the Satmar Rebbe prohibited outside "shechitah" to protect the local butchers. The meat of outside towns were all considered "shechutei Chutz" and was "chazir trief".
In fact when Belz in Yerushalyim broke away from the Eida and began their own meat shechitah, Satmar screamed "Schutei Chutz" and called all Belzer meat "chazir", in fact they believe that to this day.

Anonymous said...

5:42
you sound like your grandparents were frying schnitzel in their backyards in the USA while their brothers and sisters were being gassed in Auschwitz. Only a yankee would have no idea what "shechitah Chutz" is

Frum but normal said...

As much as i am not a fan of Satmar, i must say this character Keren Katz, has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
First of all Satmar and their predecessors where never against individuals moving to Eretz Yisroel.
Second of all,he is mixing up the Agudah with the Aida Hachreidis,one has nothing to do with the other.
At that time all the chareidim including the Agudah had one Beis Din which they recognized and that was the Aida,
But that would not have made Reb Yoilish the Rav of Agudas Yisroel.
ideologically the Aidah and Agudah were always far apart

Teitelbaum said...

to Frum
Yes he got somethings wrong as his predecessors were never against individuals moving to Eretz Yisrael, but all in all he is on the money. The Satmar Rebbe was adamant against anyone of his Kehillah in Satmar moving to America as well, and Kranz wrote about that in another essay.
My mother's side of the family was saved from the ravages of the Holocaust because they did go to the USA defying their leader R' Yoel Teitelbaum.
As far as the Aguda is concerned, Kranz is right and you are dead wrong. R' Moshe Blau was a sworn Agudast though his brother Amrom was not, but R' Moshe represented the Aguda and not the Eida Hachreidis and he made that clear in letters to Europe before he went to interview Hungarian Rabbanim in Hungary. The Satmar Rebbe was at first not interested in the job precisely because of this reason, it was only after R' Dushinsky got the job, that the Satmar rebbe got interested. Old Satmarers know this very well.

Anonymous said...

stam azoi people act shocked when the gedolim are examined... people are people. the torah says "al tiftichu bnidivim..." don't believe in princes...ect. kovod and fame are taivos also...take it from a former rabbi...the rabbinate is just as petty and cutthroat as corporate America...sad but true...see the chazon ish in emunah and bitachon where he asks how could someone give his life for klal yisrael and the same time hit someone that annoys him...