R' Moshe Wolfson's "Moonies" Granddaughter Chavie Weisberger Tells her Story

 

Chavie Weisberger reveals what it was like to grow up as a Chasidic Jew in an extreme branch of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in New York started by her own grandfather, R' Moshe Wolfson, founder of the Sect, Amunas Yisrael (Moonies). I have a friend who is a "moonie" more on that another time.

In episode 240 of "On the Edge" with Andrew Gold podcast, she talks of some aspects of her ultra orthodox Jewish wedding, and losing her kids .

The reason I decided to post the above video of Chavie Weisberger's story is because of a recent encounter that I had here in Israel with a member of the extremist Chassidic sect that follow the Toldos Ahron Rebbes and who are referred to as "arrelich."

The "aarilich" are extreme anti-Zionists, and they are the ones that yell "nazi" on firefighters that come to put out fires in their communities and throw stones on police who return their lost children. The Todos Ahron Rebbe is a leader of a cult that worship him. Hence their total disrespect of other Jews and even other Chassidic sects. I became pretty close to one of them who confided to me what really goes on behind the scenes. I will one day write about that, it is truly fascinating. He was telling me how he met his wife and a little bit of their relationship, sounds a lot like Chavie's story.

The story of Chavie Weisberger is her own unique story with her very own experiences and is really not a reflection of every Chassidic family, but what I found very telling was that rabbonim would make fundraisers that raised over a million dollars to take children away from a mother because she doesn't follow their values! I find that very disturbing.

It reminds me of the Yossele Shumacher Story in the 1960's when a grandfather decided to kidnap his own grandchild, decided to rip a child from his mother, and shipped him off to another country because he wanted the child to be a shomer shabbos. Mind you, this grandfather brought up his daughter the mother of this child as a chiloinie, he later became frum. I don't care what his reasoning was, you don't rip children away from their mother, period!

You may disagree with Chavie's lifestyle, her values, but one has to respect that she is a mother and as a mother she has the same entitlements to bring up her children as her ex-husband. One could argue, well, they married, with both on the same page, hashkafa wise, and she is changing the script. To that I say, well just too bad. When you get divorced, they both have the same rights to bring up the children the way they see fit. The mother is still a mother, and she should have custodial rights and if she is the one who changed the rules, then so be it; this is what happens when there is a divorce.