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