!!!By JOSEPH BERGER Published: April 11, 2013 !!Hasidic Sect Hopes to Buy Huge Armory in Brooklyn

First graders in a crowded classroom at Bais Rochel d'Satmar, a girls' yeshiva in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the building that once was Eastern District High School !The late-19th-century National Guard armory in Williamsburg, a 165,000-square-foot brick fortress with crenelated towers at the corners, has been empty for two years, and is now used mostly for film shoots. !

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!If the Satmar Hasidim can buy the vacant National Guard armory on Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg, they could relieve school crowding, accommodate social functions and perhaps bridge a schism in the ultra-Orthodox sect. But in a Brooklyn neighborhood where a real estate rush is fueled by both gentrification and a fast-growing Hasidic community, the Satmar sect is eyeing the building as a possible solution not only to the perennial space crunch in its schools and synagogues, but also to a bitter schism that has divided the community in two. !The Satmar Hasidim, the dominant sect in Williamsburg, consider the 3.2-acre, square-block site an ideal location for a large school, along with housing and a community hall. And the building is now for sale: The Empire State Development Corporation, a state authority, plans soon to put out a request for proposals for the site, which is known both as the 47th Regiment Armory and as the Marcy Avenue Armory. !While the state authority has said it hopes to spur a “a competitive process” and capture “the best value for New York State taxpayers,” it also plans to require in its request for proposals that the site be used to benefit “the needs and priorities of the local community,” potentially giving an edge to

the Satmar Hasidim — an important voting bloc increasingly courted by politicians. !“We’re looking forward to getting the R.F.P. and trying to come up with the best price we can afford,” said Rabbi Chaim Mandel, the business administrator for United Talmudical Academy, a large, ultra-Orthodox day school whose operations now are spread across 15 buildings. !The Satmar community is so fast-growing that it is desperate for space — for classrooms, worship services, wedding halls and other social functions. !The armory closed in 2011, after the federal government called for a consolidation of military installations, and since then the Satmars have occasionally used the building for teeming celebrations on the anniversary of the day in 1944 that the founder of the sect in America, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary. The two factions of the community, unable to work together because of rival dynastic claims, have alternated use of the building: In 2011, a group called the Zaloynim celebrated there, with 10,000 people filling the cavernous 60,000-square-foot drill hall, and last December it was the turn of the other group, called the Aroynem. !According to articles in news outlets for the ultra-Orthodox, Satmar leaders have been discussing their desire to buy the building with an Orthodox businessman, Abraham Eisner, who in the past has served as a campaign liaison to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Mr. Eisner did not return several calls seeking to discuss his role, but it would be a complicated one — the Satmar division over leadership has spilled over to the financial realm and now includes disputes over millions of dollars in property, including two synagogue buildings, four upstate summer camps, cemeteries and even a matzo bakery. !Some in the community hope that the availability of the armory, with its huge halls, at a price that is low given skyrocketing local real estate costs, will be an incentive for the Satmar sects to bridge their divisions, because the state is unlikely to side with one group over the other. !“There is a deliberate serious effort under way to bridge the historical divide between the largest Satmar factions,” said Michael Tobman, a consultant to the Aroynem.

!An ultra-Orthodox Web site called Vos Iz Neias? (What Is New?) has suggested that Mr. Eisner is close “to sealing a deal that would result in a joint purchase of the armory by Satmar’s warring factions.” And the Hasidic blog Let’s Talk Dugri has sketched the outlines of a possible deal, while pointing out that uniting the two Satmar factions would create a powerful political bloc of votes, since the community tends to vote according to the guidance of its leaders. !But Matthew Wing, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said the governor would not play a role in brokering differences within a religious community. !“No one from the governor’s office is involved in any kind of ‘deal,’ and rumors to the contrary are just that: rumors,” Mr. Wing said in an e-mail. !All sides agree that the Satmars, who tend to have a high birthrate and large families, need more space. Rabbi Benzion Feuerwerger, the Hebrew principal of Bais Rochel d’Satmar, a girls’ yeshiva in Williamsburg, describes a dilemma as architectural and mathematical as it is Talmudic. In June, Bais Rochel will graduate eight classes of eighth graders, but in September it will enroll 16 classes of first graders. How will he accommodate the newcomers? !“We know one thing: We are out of space,” Rabbi Feuerwerger said. “We only have eight empty classrooms for 16 classes. We’re looking to rent.” !Rabbi Hertz Frankel, the longtime English studies administrator of Bais Rochel, estimated that together the two Satmar factions had 30,000 students crowded into more than 20 buildings in Williamsburg, Borough Park and upstate in Monsey and Kiryas Joel. !His girls school has 2,400 students in its century-old building, which was once the public Eastern District High School. Some classes are held in bathrooms and closets, and preschool classes are in trailers. As a result, the only outdoor space available for recess is a yard the size of a basketball court. !To emphasize how rapid the Satmar growth has been, Rabbi Frankel pointed out that when he started out as a principal in 1959, the entire Satmar school system had just 800 students. With 30,000 students now

and 4,500 expected in another five years, the Satmar desperately need the armory, he said. !“Any space that would be provided would be important; otherwise we can’t survive here,” Rabbi Frankel said. !Satmar and Two Grand Rebbes !Satmar is a Hasidic sect originating from the city of Satu Mare, Transylvania, where it was founded in 1905 by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. Following World War II it was reestablished in New York, becoming one of the largest Hasidic movements in the world. After Joel's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Moshe Teitelbaum. Since the latter's death in 2006, the dynasty is split between his two sons, Aaron Teitelbaum and Zalman Teitelbaum. !Up to 1999, the wide perception within the community was that after the death of Rabbi Moshe, Satmar would remain one united sect under one rebbe, presumably Rabbi Aaron, since he is the eldest son and a prominent Talmudic scholar, and being the leader of Kiryas Joel, he held the highest post in Satmar, besides his father. There was no real talk about any other candidate besides Aaron. !On about May 1999, it was announced that Rabbi Moshe decided to change course completely and place his third son, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, as the local leader of the Williamsburg congregation, a new position that never existed. !The then leaders of Satmar, which mainly supported Aaron, and always fought for the unity, pride and power of Satmar, were devastated and in shock. They have always been the most loyal and closest allies of Rabbi Moshe, and believed that is not the real true wish of the Rebbe. Aaron supporters in Williamsburg were stripped of their positions. The supporters of Aaron scrambled to reverse it; initially they attempted for about a year to settle it at a Beth Din, but disagreements as to which Jewish tribunal is qualified to judge this case, stalled it. Then secular court litigation ensued, but the court declined to render a decision. !The Satmar split, drastically and permanently changed the dynamics of the Satmar dynasty. Instead of being a united global entity, headquartered in

Williamsburg led by one Grand Rabbi; it is now split into two independent sects. One led by Rabbi Zalman who is based in Williamsburg. The other by Rabbi Aaron who is now in charge of the main Satmar congregation in Kiryas Joel, Monroe, where his supporters regularly win the local government elections, and Borough Park, Brooklyn, a Hasidic neighborhood 8 miles from Williamsburg. !Presently, Rabbi Teitelbaum has control of the main Satmar synagogues in Kiryas Joel. In Williamsburg his main centers of operation are the great Satmar synagogue on 13 and 14 Hooper Street and the Sigeter synagogue on Hewes Street, his father's first home in America and his own home after his father moved to Boro Park. He is the official leader of 10 other synagogues in Williamsburg; the main Satmar shul in Boro Park and its branches; the main Satmar shul in London and its branches; the main Satmar shul in Bnei Brak and its branches; the Satmar shul in Jerusalem named after the work authored by his late father, Beirach Moshe. !He is currently in control of the central Satmar synagogue in Williamsburg at 152 Rodney Street.[2] Additionally, he controls approximately ten smaller synagogues, as well as a boys' school and girls' schools that teach over 8,400 children plus a high school of about 750 students, the charitable funds and several large organizations. !Group: Investigate Satmar 'Voting Scandal’ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A secularist organization is demanding that State Attorney Yehuda Weinstein open an investigation into a rumor that yeshiva students of voting age are being “bribed” not to participate in the upcoming elections in Israel. !According to reports, a wealthy patron of the Satmar Hassidic sect in the U.S. has offered NIS 100,000 to institutions that “ban” students from voting. The institutions would get the money several months after the election, with the patron writing a check directly to the institution if it could verify that none of the students voted. !Satmar Hassidim are generally ideologically opposed to the existence of Israel as an independent Jewish state. The former Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, wrote several books blasting Zionism and banning his followers from having anything to do with the institutions of the state. !However, since his death in 1979, large numbers of Satmar Hassidim living in Israel are said to have softened their stance somewhat, with some taking part in local and even national elections. The new offer is seen as an attempt to discourage that continuing softening, observers said. !Nevertheless, said Uri Regev of the Hidush organization, offering money to individuals or institutions to vote a certain way – or not vote at all – is illegal according to Israeli law, and he wants Weinstein to investigate the matter. “It is the right of Satmar Hassidim to boycott the elections, but they cannot bribe others to do so,” Regev said. “It must be made clear that they, too, are subject to Israeli law.” !Regev is currently director of Hidush, which considers itself a “watchdog” for Israel's religious establishment. Regev is the former head of the Israeli Reform movement. !Divisions in Satmar Sect Complicate Politics of Brooklyn Hasidim !There is an enduring belief among some New York political aficionados that Hasidic Jews vote in a bloc. Capture the support of a chief rabbi and you capture the entire Hasidic sect. !

But the divisions in several Hasidic sects have made once-simple calculations far more complicated, as shown by the preliminary results in the recent Democratic primary for the Congressional seat held by Nydia M. Velázquez, a district that embraces Brooklyn’s Hasidic enclave in Williamsburg. !The Satmar are the largest Hasidic sect in the United States, with its stronghold in Williamsburg, but with the death of Moses Teitelbaum, the Satmar grand rabbi, in 2006, their ranks have been sundered by a dynastic battle between two of his sons, Aaron and Zalman. And politics has become a favored way for each side to demonstrate its ascendancy. !Two days after Representative Velázquez’s triumph in the June 26 primary, the Aroynem, as Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum’s followers are known in a transliteration from the Yiddish, issued a news release claiming that their “political muscle” in marshaling 4,000 of her 16,000 votes spelled the difference in Ms. Velázquez’s victory over City Councilman Erik Martin Dilan. He had the backing of the Zaloynim, the followers of Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum. !They also contended that their votes were crucial in two other Brooklyn elections in recent years, that of State Senator Daniel L. Squadron and Councilman David G. Greenfield. The Aroynem, based in Kiryas Joel, a village near Monroe, N.Y., even claimed they were fast rivaling the numbers of the Zaloynim in their base of Williamsburg. !“Williamsburg is no longer under the complete control of the Zaloynim,” Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader of the Aroynem, said in a statement issued after the primary by the public relations firm George Arzt Communications. “The Aroynem have just as much power and influence.” !The claim — trumpeted in a banner headline in the Aroynem newspaper that said “Mazel Tov Williamsburg” — was quickly disputed as an exaggeration by partisans for Zalman Teitelbaum. Rabbi David Niederman, chief executive of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, who is a supporter of Mr. Dilan but whose social service organization claims neutrality, contends that the Zaloynim, with allies from other Hasidic sects in Williamsburg, turned out more than 60 percent of the Hasidic vote for Mr. Dilan. Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic leader who is allied with the Zaloynim, made the same claim.

!The quarrel, which has little to do with any standard political issue like taxes or abortion, suggests that the succession disputes in Hasidic sects are starting to affect Hasidic power in politics at a time when there are dynastic conflicts within at least three of the largest sects, Satmar, Bobov and Viznitz. !Some political professionals contend that the disputes have weakened the effectiveness of the Hasidim. Imagine, they say, if the warring Satmar factions had joined together on behalf of, say, Mr. Dilan. Then the bloc vote would be as powerful as the myth has made it seem. !The Satmar number 150,000 worldwide, and Williamsburg, with perhaps 60,000 adherents, is its largest enclave. While he was still vigorous, Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum appointed Aaron, the older brother, leader in Kiryas Joel, which now has 23,000 Satmar Hasidim, the village’s entire population, and from that perch Aaron Teitelbaum saw himself as the presumptive heir. But his brother was the father’s deputy in Williamsburg, and when the father suffered the terminal decline of Alzheimer’s, Zalman Teitelbaum and his organization assumed the reins of leadership there. !In the aftermath, disputes have cropped up at every turn, over who owns which schools, synagogues, summer camps and real estate. (The two groups both agree that Israel should not have established itself as a state until the coming of the Messiah, a belief that defines the Satmar sect.) !Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at the City University of New York who is writing a book on the succession battles in Hasidic dynasties, said it did not matter who the Congressional candidates were and their positions; the two sides, he said, would have ended up as adversaries. !“It could have been Tweedledum and Tweedledee — the two sides would have opposed each other,” said Professor Heilman, who compares the fights to dynastic battles in royal families. “Each of them wants to say we speak for Satmar so they can look as if they were the deciding factor, an important bloc in the election. Then when that particular candidate needs to turn to the Satmar community, he or she will turn to that faction.” !One reason so many dynastic squabbles emerged in the past decade, Professor Heilman said, is that the grand rabbis are living longer,

sometimes too long to have the vigor to conclusively determine whom their successors will be or so long that their increasingly entrenched institutional court refuses to cede power. In Hasidic Europe before World War II, a contender to the throne unhappy with a chosen successor could set up his seat in a neighboring village, Mr. Heilman said. But since the war, with the consolidation of Hasidim into relatively few sects, each sect’s brand name has been enshrined so that successors want to become, say, the Satmar rebbe, not the Kiryas Joel rebbe. !In Williamsburg, the Aroynem have set up parallel synagogues, yeshivas, ritual baths, matzo factories, Yiddish newspapers, social service organizations, meat markets and wedding halls, many of them created virtually overnight. There has also been a bitter dispute over who owns four summer camps in Ulster County, a quarrel in which Mr. Lopez personally intervened on behalf of the Zaloynim. !A perennial dispute involves public housing. Both sides are eager for more to be developed in Williamsburg, where Hasidic leaders want more three- and four-bedroom apartments for their large families, while Hispanic leaders want a larger allocation of smaller apartments for their community. The Zaloynim contend Mr. Dilan has been more helpful in that dispute, while the Aroynem laud Ms. Velázquez. The issue is held up in the courts to determine whether current plans for the site would have a discriminatory effect. !Whatever the basis of the dynastic quarrel, pragmatism often trumps ideology and sometimes produces strange bedfellows. When the Aroynem wanted a mikvah — a ritual bath — for their followers in Williamsburg, they needed zoning permits and, according to community leaders, sought out the political muscle of two councilmen close to Mr. Lopez, Stephen Levin and Mr. Dilan. With Rabbi Niederman’s prodding, the two councilmen provided the needed help. !Satmar Succession Battle Heats Up, Riots Feared !The battle between two Satmar Hasidic sects is about to reach biblical proportions. !The scandal engulfing Assemblyman Vito Lopez -- the most powerful ally of Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum's faction -- has created a window of opportunity

for the faction led by older brother Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum to capture the highly coveted Williamsburg congregation the sibling rivals have fought over for a decade. !At stake is a $372 million real-estate empire. !Operatives within the Aaroni faction -- which controls the Satmar congregation in Kiryas Joel in upstate Orange County -- told The Post that within weeks they plan to crash the Brooklyn congregation's main synagogue on Rodney Street, two Zali schools and a matzo bakery. !The bitter feud between the brothers dates to 1999, when their ailing father signed over the Williamsburg congregation to Zalman. Secular courts have refused to settle the fight, saying it's a religious matter. !When the two factions last clashed on Rodney Street, in 2005, riot police were called in. !Abe Weinberger, a board member of the Zali congregation, warned that the Aaroni plot is "only going to end up in riots." !But Aaroni official Moishe Indig said the time is ripe for another takeover attempt. !"Vito Lopez is going down; we're going up," he said, explaining that the embattled Brooklyn Democratic boss can't use his influence to prop up the Zalis anymore. !"I don't think that, in today's date, anybody will take his call." !Since Lopez became mired in scandal involving the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, a social-service empire he controls, the Aaronies have seen a remarkable turn in their political fortune. !Their candidate for district leader, Lincoln Restler, who campaigned on toppling Lopez, narrowly defeated the Zali-backed candidate on primary day. !

Since the Aaronies proved they could sway elections, Gary Schlesinger, chairman of the Aaronies' nonprofit arm, UJ Care, said big-time politicians like Andrew Cuomo have visited them. !UJ Care and the Central Jewish Council received only $50,000 last year in comparison to the rival Zali-allied United Jewish Organization, which got $575,000. !And last week, a state Supreme Court judge suspended proceedings on a case over the Broadway Triangle development project in Williamsburg, pending city and federal investigations into Lopez and his affiliated nonprofits. !Broadway Triangle would have meant 160 units of affordable housing for the UJO. The Aaroni faction had joined the lawsuit to stop it. !The Zalis have also tried to block an affordable-housing project that would benefit the Aaronies -- Rose Plaza, with 226 affordable units for UJ Care, proposed by Aaroni Vice President Isaac Rosenberg. !A City Council member said David Neiderman, who heads the UJO, pressured elected officials to vote for the Broadway Triangle but against Rose Plaza and has tried to dissuade them from funding UJ Care. !"He did not want me to befriend UJ Care, he [Neiderman] talked about them all the time," the councilmember said. !Neiderman responded that public funding was "competitive" and that he opposed the Rose Plaza project on its merits !Satmar Brothers Dueling Over Summer Camps — 3,500 Zalmanite Kids Hang in the Balance !The Satmar Brothers Aaron and Zalman are once again at each other’s throats, this time over who would get to use the four summer camps in Ulster County, New York. !David Rosenburg has administered the camps on behalf of Congregation Yetev Lev (CYL) of Satmar for many decades. After the Satmar Succession

Feud erupted in 1999, Rosenburg continued to administer the camps on behalf of the ZalmaniteWilliamsburg leadership until now. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!This year, however, the Aaronites once again seized upon the 2006 New York State supreme court ruling that declared the Zalman-Aaron dispute “nonjudiciable”, meaning that the court is not allowed to rule on the dispute since that would entail making a judgement on the question of what constitutes proper religious adherence as stipuated in the CYL congregational bylaws and would thus be a violation of the United States constitutional clause requiring separation of church and state. !The practical upshot of the 2006 ruling has been tens of millions of dollars worth of congregational property in indefinite limbo, with neither side having legal title over it and law enforcement being instructed to simply maintain order and the status quo. When the Zalmanites attempted to apply for a permit to occupy the new synagogue under construction on Ross Street in Williamsburg, the Aaronites successfully blocked it since the Zalmanite applicants were unable to prove that they had a legal right to occupy the land. !Now the Aaronites are applying the same technique on the summer camps of CYL, which require an annually-issued permit from the county health department before they can be occupied for the summer. When the

Zalmanites first applied for the permit before Passover this year, the Aaronites immediately counter-applied and apparently received a permit as well. After considerable rancor between the parties over who should get the final permit the executive revoked them both and exhorted the parties to mediate the dispute between themselves. !The Zalmanites are refusing to give an inch; they insist on holding on to all four camps, even as it is likely that the Aaronites would be content for now if thrown a bone of merely one camp. Conversely, the Aaronites would be triumphantly victorious if the camps would lie fallow for the summer as a result of Zalmanite intransigence. They are bent on ensuring that gam li gam loch lo yihyeh — neither I nor you shall have it, if Zalmanites refuse to negotiate in good faith. !Both parties are lining up the big-gun political connections behind their representatives: Vito Lopez (head of democratic party in Kings county) supporting Rabbi David Niederman on the Zalman side and state senator Daniel L. Squadron supporting Aaron Veltz on the Aaronite side. Vito Lopez reportedly personally showed up this week at the Ulster county executive’s office to exert pressure on behalf of his Zalmanite constituency. !Some people familiar with the camp dispute saga believe that the larger bribe will ultimately win the day. Whichever side can palm or pledge more money to their elected officials and/or Ulster county officials will take the spoils. Specifically, the Zalmanite party –deep-pocketed, well-connected, and with the urgency of up to 3,500 kids who may not have where to spend the summer if the permit is not granted them– is likely to prevail even though neither side is legally entitled to a permit without the other sides’s consent. Is is rumored that Ulster county officials privately advised the Aaronites that although they feel compelled to issue the permit to the Zalmanites under political pressure, if the Aaronites challenge it in court, the county won’t defend its action. !Blood feud dampens Satmar power !An interesting trend continued this election cycle in Kiryas Joel, a heavily Satmar town of about 20,000 in Orange County, which has been courted as a voting bloc for years by local and national politicians. !

By voting as a bloc and turning out in high numbers, the Hasidic Jewish community has long been able to leverage its political power. Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor visited the community the Friday before this year's election to campaign for Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth, who ultimately lost to Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney. !!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The main synagogue in Kiryas Joel !The resources derived by Kiryas Joel from that power are needed: As the New York Times wrote last year, the enclave has the highest poverty rate of any village, town or city of at least 10,000 people in the country. The median age of its rapidly growing population is under 12. !But the last several elections, a fracture in the community has formed that diminishes the town's political power. !Following the death of the Satmar leader Moshe Teitelbaum in 2006, a succession feud began between his sons, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum and Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, in two communities: southern Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel. !In the past two congressional elections, Kiryas Joel has split its vote between the rival factions. This time, Ms. Hayworth got 3,335 votes and Mr.

Maloney got 1,518, according to unofficial results. Mr. Maloney won the race by about 8,500 votes. !Some observers say the community is less politically valuable to politicians if the two brothers' factions take opposite sides in elections. !"It hurts them if they stop voting as a bloc and just cancel each other out," said operative Michael Fragin, who did Jewish voter outreach for the Pataki administration. !The votes for Mr. Maloney were especially striking because he is openly gay, which would seemingly be anathema to socially conservative Satmar voters. But others say there is value in the community hedging its bets. In a local Assembly race this year, the two factions did agree on their candidate — who ended up losing. If the two sides are at odds, politicians are compelled to pay it some attention, according to public relations consultant and Jewish politics blogger Yossi Gestetner. !"One side voted for Hayworth and lost," said Mr. Gestetner, "but it can be argued that that's better than both sides losing." !Ruling Leaves Younger Son in Control of Hasidic Sect !The succession battle between two brothers to be the leader of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect is back in the courts. The brothers, Zalman and Aaron Teitelbaum, have been fighting for years in religious and state civil courts to determine who should head the Satmar sect of hasidic Judaism. !!!!!!!!!! !!!

Rabbis Aharon (left) and Zalman (right) Teitelbaum

!More than three years after a power struggle between two brothers landed in a New York court, a Supreme Court judge handed the younger brother a victory yesterday, ruling that their quarrel - which has sharply divided one of New York's largest Hasidic groups - was not for the court to decide. !In the ruling, Judge Melvin S. Barasch of Supreme Court in Brooklyn wrote that the court "declined to make any decision" in a feud between Aaron Teitelbaum and his younger brother Zalmen. The two have been battling over who will succeed their father, Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, spiritual leader of the Satmar Hasidim, the largest Hasidic sect in Brooklyn. !Judge Barasch also wrote that "the court leaves intact the status quo in terms of day-to-day operations of the congregation and its institutions," unless Rabbi Teitelbaum - who is 89, according to a spokesman - decides otherwise. !The ruling was claimed as a victory by the supporters of Zalmen Teitelbaum, who has led the now-divided Yetev Lev D'Satmar Williamsburg congregation since 1999, when his father asked him to take over the leadership there. !"He basically has left us in charge," said Scott Mollen, a lawyer at Herrick, Feinstein of Manhattan, who is representing the Zalmen Teitelbaum faction. "The status quo is that we are in charge." !The Williamsburg congregation's board controls a powerful network of social services and property, including schools that educate more than 8,000 students, a famed matzo factory, summer camps, a kosher meat market and a loan company. !The Williamsburg congregation's board, its secular leadership, is at the heart of the legal case between the two sides. The board split and each side called an election in May 2001, which produced rival boards, each allied with a faction. !A lawyer for Aaron Teitelbaum's supporters, including Berl Friedman, who had been president of the board before the split and is now president of the rival board, called the ruling "contradictory" and said his clients would most likely appeal it.

!The lawyer, Jeffrey D. Buss, said Judge Barasch had ultimately stepped back from making a decision in what the judge said was a religious matter. But Mr. Buss questioned the judge's reasoning, contending that the judge, in his 31-page decision, had already drawn on some aspects of New York law that govern religious organizations. !"It was an error for the court not to decide the corporate law issues that were presented to it," Mr. Buss said. !The case has been unusual in several ways. It has revealed some of the inner workings of a religious community that is closed to outsiders. Satmar - an ultra-Orthodox movement with its origins in Satu Mare, a largely ethnic Hungarian town in Romania - is one of the more isolationist and anti-Zionist groups in Hasidism, a movement founded in the early 18th century that stresses Talmudic scholarship, living strictly according to Jewish law and a rejection of the outside world's impurities. !In all, there are about 35,000 Satmar Hasidim in Williamsburg, 5,000 in Borough Park and more than 17,000 in Kiryas Joel, in Orange County, according to David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. The Satmar Hasidim are politically potent, as they usually vote together. !Legally, the case also stands out. There have been accusations of election fraud, harassment, contempt of court, doctored documents and judge-shopping. !In a sharply worded epilogue, Judge Barasch said that there had been many "incredible and outrageous attempts" by people associated with the case to "discredit, intimidate, and improperly influence this court." !Among those attempts, Judge Barasch wrote, were "false accusations concerning members of the court's chambers," which were published on the Internet, and harassing phone calls to members of his staff's family. !He requested that the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, look into the matter. Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Mr. Hynes, said the office would not comment until it had reviewed all the documents in the case.

!The two sides have even come to blows outside court. At least three men, all followers of Zalmen Teitelbaum, were arrested this month after a fight broke out between the factions during a service at the main Satmar temple, the Yetev Lev synagogue in Williamsburg. An Aaron Teitelbaum supporter sat in the grand rebbe's chair, and worshipers turned over metal bleachers. One claimed to have suffered a broken leg. !Kenneth K. Fisher, a former city councilman who represented Williamsburg, said the ruling appeared to be "a very significant victory" for the designated rabbi of Williamsburg - Zalmen Teitelbaum - "since he is the administrator" of the institutions. One concern, Mr. Fisher said, is that the divide is now so deep that the Satmar community, which traditionally has voted as a bloc, would be weaker politically. !Sons fight for control of Satmar Hasidic empire !An extraordinary succession battle was under way in the cloistered world of ultra-orthodox Judaism yesterday after the death of the rabbi who headed the world's largest and powerful Hasidic sect. !Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, 91, died on Monday and his funeral in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of New York that is home to the Satmar sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews drew 20,000 followers. !But yesterday, barely two days after Teitelbaum was laid to rest, his two sons fired the first salvos in what is expected to be a bitter and protracted battle to wear his mantle as the rabbi-king of the Satmar, and gain control of property believed to be worth $1bn. !Aaron Teitelbaum, 58, and Zalmen, 54, each claim leadership of the Satmar as a birthright. Although the pair declared a brief truce for the funeral, they have not spoken in a decade, and their struggle for the leadership of the Satmar has regularly led to punching matches between their respective followers. !Last October, during the Jewish holidays, the succession struggle descended into a free-for-all brawl that spilled out of a Williamsburg synagogue. The riot police were called in. At least four court cases relating to the succession were pending at the time of the Rabbi's death.

!Yesterday the younger Teitelbaum fired his first shot, releasing a will purportedly written by his father that declared him the heir. "He shall occupy my position and succeed me without any shortfall, for effective immediately I have granted him the position," the late rabbi was reported to have decreed. !The seeds for fraternal discord were sown in 1999 when the rabbi began making plans for his demise. He appointed Aaron as the sect's grand rabbi in Kiryat Joel, an entirely Hasidic enclave north of New York City. He kept Zalmen by his side in the Satmar base in Williamsburg. !Some observers see the shrewdness of the late rabbi's ways. The Satmar empire in the US was more than big enough for his sons to share. But the sons did not see it that way. As their father succumbed to cancer and Alzheimers' disease, the brothers descended into an increasingly bitter feud, obtaining writs from New York state and secular courts to try to enforce what each saw as their birthright. !Jonathan Mark, an associate editor at Jewish Week who has reported on the Satmar for 25 years, believes such succession battles are a feature of Orthodox life. No longer can a rabbi expect to command a following by fiat. He has got to work at the personal relationship between rabbi and flock that is the distinguishing feature of Hasidic sects. "In the last 15 years almost no major Hasidic group has had a clean succession," he said. !The Satmar are the largest and most dynamic of the Orthodox Jewish sects. Taking their name from Satu Mare, a town in in present-day Romania, they claim 65,000 adherents in Williamsburg and Kiryat Joel and several thousand others in Jerusalem, London, Antwerp and Montreal. They owe their primacy to the uncle of the recently deceased rabbi, Joel Teitelbaum, who emerged from post-Holocaust Europe to rebuild the sect. !"He was really the one who re-established the dynasty here in America. He was a very powerful ideological leader, and very actively involved," said Samuel Heilman, professor of Jewish studies at the City University of New York. !Under Joel Teitelbaum's leadership, the Satmar clung to a doctrine that was regarded as more stringent than other adherents of Hasidism, the mystical

movement that emerged in 18th-century eastern Europe. He also kept them more insular than other ultra-Orthodox groups, and he was fiercely opposed to Zionism. !Yet within that cloistered world, members of the sect took a leading role among Orthodox communities in medical outreach, founding a volunteer ambulance corps that has chapters from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and setting up a testing service to screen for genetic diseases prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews. !All that is now at stake for the two brothers fighting over their father's legacy. Prof Heilman, however, has a solution. The sect could agree on an amiable split. "The group is much bigger now. It can sustain two rebbes located in different locations. If this was in Europe, one would be called the Kiryat Joel rebbe and one called the Williamsburg rebbe, and there wouldn't be any problem.” !Hats On, Gloves Off !The death of the rebbe frees his sons Aaron and Zalmen to go to war. But is the prize—all of Hasidic Williamsburg—a poisoned chalice? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!A view inside the Satmar synagogue in Brooklyn on April 24, the day the rebbe died

!Aaron, eldest son of Moses, received the summons in the spring of 1999 at his home on Sanz Court in Kiryas Joel, a small town upstate. His father, the leader of the largest Hasidic sect in the world, requested Aaron’s presence in Brooklyn. It was no small matter to be called to Moses’s court during Passover, a season when every Satmar stays close to home and family to concentrate on the joy of God. !Aaron was a scholar, a writer of learned disquisitions on the Torah and Talmud and a most unyielding leader. In his sixteen years as rabbi there, Aaron had overseen a small miracle in Kiryas Joel. Hundreds of affordable tract homes for the fast-growing community of nearly 20,000 Hasidic souls had been built along its winding roads, and a town hall and shopping mall sat across a plaza from a synagogue grander than any found in Satmar Brooklyn. There was a fine brick-and-marble yeshiva, the United Talmudical Academy, of which Aaron was the dean. !Aaron’s tisch, the Sabbath dinner each Friday, was a delight for the yungerleit, the young men who begged to join in the evening of clapping and singing and keening prayer. Afterward, he would offer counsel about religion and the importance of repressing adolescent longing. !Aaron was building the foundation of a new home for the Satmars. And, he felt sure, demonstrating why one day he should rule as his father’s successor. !Aaron’s driver took him down in an SUV over the George Washington and Williamsburg bridges to 550 Bedford Avenue, the three-story red-brick house of his father, Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum. !Inside he found his brothers, Lipa, Shulem, and Zalmen, the latter freshly arrived from Jerusalem, where he served as Satmar rabbi. Aaron said hello to his father’s gabbai (secretary), Moses Friedman—a political force who, in truth, Aaron could barely tolerate. Then the rebbe, his face thin and wreathed by a beard long and white, sat down and explained a new world to his eldest son. !The Satmars are a great people, he said in Yiddish. But when a sect stretches from Williamsburg to Montreal, London to Antwerp, Jerusalem to Kiryas Joel, the wisdom of a prophet is required to lead. A rebbe can no

longer hope to say “mazel tov” at every child’s birth nor recite a blessing at every boy’s Bris. A Satmar knocks at the door seeking advice and you barely know him. You have done a fine job in Kiryas Joel, but growth begets problems. One man cannot rule all. !So the rebbe told Aaron that as his eldest son, he had a right to choose: Kiryas Joel or Williamsburg. You rule one, and your brother Zalmen will rule the other. !Aaron protested. He had trained to become the grand rebbe. Aaron left that night undecided—he complained to aides that the decision should be left to a rabbinical court after his father’s death. But a few days later, he called his father. !I will rule Kiryas Joel, Aaron said. !The grand rebbe, who had seen other Hasidic sects split asunder, insisted his son announce this decision in his Kiryas Joel synagogue on June 29, 1999. It’s known as Aaron’s “confession speech.” !“Today I am one who was told what to do and is doing it,” Aaron said to his congregation in Yiddish. “My father, shall he be healthy and strong, called me this morning and told me a few words . . . That he appointed Rabbi Zalmen as rabbi in Williamsburg . . . Whoever will dare to cause a commotion . . . shall have no right of entry into the synagogue.” !So it ended and so it began, the war between the Cain and Abel of the Hasidic world. In the seven years since the confession speech, Aaron and Zalmen, two middle-aged brothers, have engaged in a succession war so nasty that the ledger includes accusations of forged papers and purloined tapes, broken bones, and a brawl with a platoon of nightclub bouncers inside a Williamsburg synagogue. !Last week, the 91-year-old grand rebbe died at Mount Sinai Hospital, as dementia dimmed his eyes and cancer nested in his spine. At the funeral on April 25 in the Rodney Street synagogue in Williamsburg, in front of thousands of Satmar men pressed so tightly together a spectator could barely draw a breath, Aaron and Zalmen gave a show of unity, sharing a dais as they wailed lamentations and bowed toward their father’s wooden casket. But it soured even before the day was over. Supporters threw

punches at the shul in Kiryas Joel, sending two—including Moses Friedman—to the hospital; rumors of two different versions of the grand rebbe’s last will and testament circulated; the local rabbinical court, the beit din, declared Zalmen the grand rebbe, while Aaron claimed that the boards of directors of congregations in Israel, Great Britain, and, of course, Kiryas Joel threw their weight behind the elder son. !Not even sitting shivah has muted the war. Last Wednesday, Aaron announced that he was returning to take over Williamsburg and leaving his son in charge of Kiryas Joel. Two grand rebbes, one flock. The Royal Teitelbaums have ruled the Satmars for decades, during which time the theocratic sect has experienced catastrophic loss in the hills of Transylvania and extraordinary rebirth in a once-forgotten industrial corner of Brooklyn. But if the brothers cannot make peace (and no shtreimel-hatted bookie would take odds that long), the sect will divide. !“Another month, or maybe a year, the split will be complete, that’s for sure,” says an adviser who ranks high in the royal court of Zalmen. “We’ll have our Satmar schools and shuls, and the Aaronis will have their Satmar schools and shuls. We wear fur hats, they wear fur hats. Both sides are using the same name.” He pauses to mull that over. “It will be very confusing, no?” !The two brothers’ leadership styles inhabit distant poles. Aaron casts himself in the model of his great-uncle, the late, revered grand rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, the charismatic leader who brought the sect to Brooklyn in 1946. But Aaron can be an iron-fisted political boss. Those he favors obtain jobs and the rebbe’s love. Those who cross him are sometimes frozen out. And more than a few Kiryas Joel dissidents fear the blows of Aaron’s yungerleit legions. !From his first days in Kiryas Joel, Aaron was opposed by a purist Old Guard aligned with Joel Teitelbaum’s formidable widow, Feige the Rebbetzin. (She has since died.) Aaron lashed back with angry words, and the yungerleit and dissidents clashed in shadowy battles—cars were torched, windows broken, men beaten. Aaron barred one outspoken purist from sending his children to a school and barred other dissidents from visiting dead relatives in the cemetery. !

Michael Sussman, a secular lawyer who represented some of the Old Guard, once visited Aaron at his Kiryas Joel home: a modern two-story affair. Why, Sussman asked, can’t you tolerate a little dissent? !“He was polite but very adamant that this was a theocracy: If people want to remain in his congregation, then he had the authority to dictate what people can do,” Sussman recalls. “And if they don’t listen . . . ” His voice trailed off. !Moses told Aaron to choose: Kiryas Joel or Williamsburg. You will rule one, and your brother will rule the other. !As ever, the actions of Aaron’s supporters spoke loudest. The Aaronis marched into a Williamsburg synagogue less than a month after the Zalis repulsed a similar attack. This time, the Aaronis brought a platoon of bouncers from a nightclub. The bouncers climbed onto the dais that leads to the Torah scrolls and coldcocked several Satmar men in the face, dropping them to the floor. !Afterward, Zalmen’s followers began saying aloud what the late grand rebbe Moses would only hint at: that Aaron, with his arrogance and tolerance of violence, had weakened the pillars of his own temple. “Aaron acts like straight-up John Gotti,” says burly fish-store owner Abe Braun—an obvious exaggeration from someone who has himself brawled with Aaron’s forces. !Zalmen, 55, is temperamentally his father’s son, milder of manner and with a more gentle grip on the reins of power than Aaron, 57. Zalmen had seemed content to rule a lesser shul in Borough Park until his father sent him to Jerusalem, a prelude to succession. Even so, Zalmen’s scholarship was never as deep nor his Friday tisch so electric as Aaron’s. !To this day, followers compare notes like scouts sizing up a middling pitching prospect. So he’s getting better, no? His speeches, more self-confident, yes? !No one who analyzes Zalmen’s rise can discount the white-bearded gabbai, Moses Friedman, the grand rebbe’s gatekeeper and confidant. Friedman convinced the grand rebbe that Aaron lacked the temperament to succeed him, aides for both sides say. What’s more, Friedman took a personal hand in grooming Zalmen for leadership, helping him to understand that a

successful rebbe must seek consensus rather than command it. Today, the old gabbai supervises Zalmen’s court with a master bureaucrat’s touch, while Zalmen, who is no fool, takes the role of chairman of the board. Friedman talks to local pols; Zalmen closes the deals. !Yet the deal that matters most—the 1999 agreement that Aaron would take Kiryas Joel and Zalmen would take Brooklyn and the schools and shuls that come with that inheritance—has never been sealed. !This past week, when the beit din ruled Zalmen is the rightful heir to the throne, Aaron complained that the judges were biased. For years, Aaron has ignored the board of directors of the Williamsburg congregation, arguing that it was elected illegally. He’s currently waging a court battle to install his own board and let it choose a future leader (inevitably himself). When his father’s 2002 will was read, the one that gives Williamsburg to Zalmen, Aaron charged that Zalmen manipulated the old man into signing it. A year ago, the rebbe turned on Aaron in a public confrontation, according to a report in HasidicNews.com. “You rushe ben rushe [evil person],” the grand rebbe yelled. “You think I’m already kaleching [mentally declining]? You think I don’t know what’s going on?” !The conflict is fueled by an army of royal-court officials and hangers-on—so many jobs and perks and loans depend on which son rules. Thousands of Satmars define themselves as Zalis or Aaronis, and some are cheerfully willing to commit mayhem in service of their chosen leader. !All charismatic Hasidic sects run a risk of dynastic wars, notes David Pollock of the Jewish Community Relations Council, not least because none possesses a clear process for choosing a successor. But the rivalry of Aaron and Zalmen is sui generis. The Satmars have 120,000 members, more than any other sect. The Satmar congregation controls a portfolio of shuls, yeshivas, no-interest-loan associations, meat markets, and charities valued at more than $500 million. That’s not counting a social-service empire that pulls down millions of public dollars for health, welfare, food stamps, and public housing. (For all their wealth, the sect knows poverty—the median income in Kiryas Joel is $15,800, and 60 percent of the families live below the poverty line). !This empire is concentrated in Williamsburg, 50,000 strong, and Aaron has decided to make a play for it. He cannot hope to compete with Zalmen there

unless he gains control of at least a few schools and social-service organizations in Brooklyn. To build new institutions from scratch in Williamsburg, at today’s inflated land prices, is nearly impossible. So with Aaron moving back into the old neighborhood, determined to become the grand rebbe, the community is steeling itself for more violence. !“We have one God and one wife,” says Isaac Abraham, a short, husky Aaron supporter who, as a young man, served Grand Rebbe Joel. “We should have one leader.” !He shrugged. “If not, maybe we’ll cut the baby in two.” !The founding father of all Hasidic sects is the Ba’al Shem Tov, an eighteenth-century mystic steeped in Kabbalah who taught Jews in pogrom-ravaged Eastern Europe that scholasticism wasn’t the only way to experience God—loving worship was another. !The Ba’al Shem Tov’s disciples fingered out through Eastern Europe. The sects took the names of their towns. So the Lubavitchers hail from Lubavitch in Belarus, the Belz from Belza in eastern Poland, the Bobov from the similarly named Polish town. The Satmars take their name from Satu Mare, the Romanian hill city (annexed by Hungary during the war) where Joel Teitelbaum, the sect’s modern founder, was appointed rabbi in 1934. !The Satmar story nearly ended in a concentration camp. In 1944, the Nazis invaded Hungary and deported or killed 70 percent of its Jews. Rebbe Joel was shipped to Bergen-Belsen, only to be saved by Reszo Kasztner, a Zionist who negotiated with Adolf Eichmann to buy the rabbi’s freedom. !This was a curious vessel of salvation. The Satmars are fervent anti-Zionists who believe that to create a Jewish state before the Messiah comes courts God’s wrath. “It is because of the Zionists,” Teitelbaum wrote later, “that 6 million Jews were killed.” !The conflict is fueled by royal-court officials and hangers-on—so many jobs and perks depend on which son rules. Joel Teitelbaum arrived in New York on Rosh Hashanah in 1946. He came with the barest minyan—the ten Jews needed to establish a synagogue. His nephew Moses Teitelbaum arrived as well, having lost his wife, Leah, at

Auschwitz. Hasidic Jews had settled in Williamsburg since the twenties, but the atmosphere was that of a trayfe medina (a nonkosher city). It was Rebbe Joel’s all-consuming desire to rebuild the Yiddish-speaking world of Eastern Europe. No compromise with modernity was tolerated. Hence the emphasis on fur hats and white knee-stockings. Boys are schooled in the Talmud while girls learn math. (Biology is a nonstarter; the Satmars believe God created the world 6,000 years ago.) !“Joel turned his back on secular education,” says Zalman Alpert, a reference librarian at Yeshiva University. “He wanted folkways, the food, clothing, even the humor of Eastern Europe.” !When Rebbe Joel noticed many young men passing their days humming prayers, he called them together. We will only survive, he said, if you work and generate cash to nourish us. Those Satmar men branched into real estate—buying up much of Williamsburg—and the diamond business. Their money girds what is now a small empire. !But Joel was not above picking fights with other sects, perhaps to stir the blood of young followers. Many Hasidim share the neighborhood, but the Satmars insist their laws must rule. Recently, the Lubavitchers—who are Zionists and former egg-throwing antagonists of the Satmars—suffered their own schism. When Rebbe Menachem Schneerson died twelve years ago, many Lubavitchers declared him the Messiah and still await his resurrection. !This strikes the Satmars as nutty. They revere but don’t quite worship leaders. Rebbe Joel died in 1979 and the Satmars were rudderless. But the board members kept the religious corporations alive. One year later, Moses Teitelbaum was selected as the new grand rebbe. He was knowledgeable, he was a Holocaust survivor, and if he was a bit of a caretaker, he would steer his sect into a new era. But what now? !The chatter on Lee Avenue, where the Satmar women in head scarves and long spring coats load up on veal at the Satmar Meat Market, is of Aaron’s return and Zalmen’s stand. Next week, Aaron will haul in dignitaries from every corner of the Satmar world, from England and Israel, Belgium and Canada, to declare himself the grand rebbe. !

The prize is Williamsburg, but if the battle between the brothers Teitelbaum is long and distracting enough, the neighborhood could turn into a poisoned chalice. Aaron is not the only problem: Gilt-edged gentrification presses at every edge. Once Satmar developers could fill suitcases with cash and persuade poor Latino families to vacate their rowhouses. Now Jewish builders struggle to outbid luxury developers for land upon which to put apartments with five and six bedrooms. Procreation may be a Satmar imperative, but it could create a demographic crisis. The average Satmar family has eight children, and to walk into Satmar tenements is to find poorer parents setting up cots in the kitchen and laying down bedding in the bathtub. !Gentrification’s cultural gravity is no less threatening. The Satmars are insistently hermetic. Rabbis proscribe television and the Internet as sin. In recent weeks, Satmar boys, side-locks—known as payes—bouncing as they ran, pasted up the Yiddish wall posters that functioned as breaking-news bulletins on the fate of the grand rebbe. !Schism is not the only threat: Some ultra-ultra-Orthodox confess a love for Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and Wilco. !Aaron sometimes bows to the imperatives of the modern world. Zalmen, by contrast, is a proud kanoi—a zealot. He would not allow the construction of an eruv in Williamsburg, the wire enclosure that permits mothers and fathers to lift children and push strollers on the Sabbath. Aaron has an eruv in Kiryas Joel. The theological differences between the brothers are thin as a page in the Talmud. !Each brother inveighs against such sins as masturbation and women talking on cell phones in public. Ari Zupnick, a well-to-do importer and Aaron man, insists every Satmar—every one—likes it this way. “No one is interested in modern culture. We have a saying . . . ” he pauses and wags a forefinger in the air. “ ‘Don’t be smarter than your father.’ ” !That’s fine bluster, but in reality, trying to double-lock the door against modernity is a chancy business. What is to be done about the thousands of Satmar men who carry fancy cell phones and BlackBerrys and keep a computer jack in their cars? How to account for the Zalmen supporter who in the midst of talking about how ultra-ultra-Orthodox the Satmars are, confesses a love of Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and Wilco?

!“The artists,” the Satmar term of derision that encompasses hipsters, trustafarians, and even vaguely trendy yuppies, are a fatter apple of temptation than most Satmars acknowledge. Mothers who live near the hipper side of Williamsburg constantly complain about artists canoodling in front of their children. !“My friends who live near Broadway, they talk of the stress,” says Chaya Kurz, an attractive 22-year-old mother of a 10-month-old. She wears the required wig—all married women shave their hair on the wedding night—that proclaims her modesty. “Where we live, in the middle of our neighborhood, it is easy. On the edges, it is harder.” !An air of apprehension is palpable, not least for Zalis who face invasion from all sides. A few fathers described stopping by Zalmen’s modest home on a recent Friday evening. They put questions to their rabbi: What should we do with our teenage girls who peer covertly at these artists? Why do these artists never put curtains on their windows? Can we force them out? !Zalmen, they reported, meditated a moment. “You must close your curtains and pray and remember what it is to be Satmar,” he said. “This is our shtetl, and our walls must go high.” !The Heir Unapparent; Brothers' Feud Fractures a Hasidic Community !More than 10,000 men filled a warehouse in Brooklyn, clapping rhythmically as their grand rabbi approached the dais. They sang praises to God from Psalm 22: ''In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.'' !The occasion was the annual fund-raising dinner last Dec. 5 celebrating the escape of the founder of the Satmar Hasidim from the Nazis, when, according to Satmar tradition, the founder intoned the verse after setting foot on Swiss soil. It is the most important secular date on the Satmar calendar, and that night more than $700,000 was raised for Satmar yeshivas, organizers said. !

Gov. George E. Pataki and other elected officials attended, along with virtually every important figure in the Satmar community save one: Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, the eldest son of the current grand rabbi. !His absence spoke volumes in the insular world of the Satmars, the largest Hasidic sect in Brooklyn. It was a sign of a churning power struggle between Aaron and his younger brother Zalmen to succeed their father, Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, who is in his late 80's and is the nephew of the founder, Joel Teitelbaum. !The feud has burst through the borders of Williamsburg, the Satmar heartland, and into a civil court. There are accusations of election fraud, harassment, contempt of court, doctored documents and judge-shopping. !The split is perceived as deeply painful for Moses Teitelbaum, who assumed the leadership of the Satmars in 1979 when his uncle died without a son and the group's rabbis chose him, the only nephew, as the most authoritative figure. !''What's happening is a jockeying for position in recognition of the fact that the grand rebbe is getting on in years,'' said a lawyer with close ties to the Brooklyn Satmars who is not involved in the case. ''He should live to be 120, but his health is up and down,'' the lawyer said. !More than symbolic leadership is at stake !The grand rabbi is a profound figure in Hasidism. He is the worldwide spiritual authority and holds enormous sway over lives. Among the Satmar, the grand rabbi also ultimately controls a powerful network of yeshivas and social services. !In Brooklyn, the network feeds the hungry, cares for the elderly and educates 8,500 students. The congregation also runs a famed matzo factory, a kosher meat market, a loan company and real estate holdings worth tens of millions of dollars. It is building a $20 million synagogue in Williamsburg that will be able to hold 10,000 people. !The feud dates to 1999, when Moses Teitelbaum called upon his third son Zalmen, who was born in 1951, to take over leadership of the Yetev Lev D'Satmar congregation, the main congregation in Williamsburg. The

appointment was viewed as a sign that Zalmen was destined to become grand rabbi. It surprised many Satmars, who assumed that Aaron, the eldest brother, who was born in 1947, was next in line according to Hasidic custom. Since 1985, Aaron has been the rabbi of the Satmar branch in Kiryas Joel, an Orange County village. !Factions formed around the brothers !The Williamsburg faction says the grand rabbi put his younger son in charge of the Brooklyn congregation because the Satmar community had grown too large for one man to tend. !The Kiryas Joel side says the grand rabbi was swayed by his advisers, who thought they could maintain their power if the younger son was installed. Aaron Teitelbaum, recognized as the more charismatic, forceful brother, would be beyond their control, in this view. !It is difficult to gauge the support in Williamsburg for Aaron Teitelbaum. Few Satmars will speak on the record, but the support is significant. Even some Satmars who sympathize with Zalmen Teitelbaum put the number at a third to a half, but his most ardent supporters say only a small, vocal group of dissidents back Aaron. !Neither Aaron nor Zalmen would speak to a reporter for this article, according to their lawyers. Satmar officials said the grand rabbi would not speak publicly about the matter. !The struggle between the two factions is technically over secular leadership of the Williamsburg congregation. The board split and each side called an election in May, which produced rival boards, each allied with a faction. !After the sides could not agree on which rabbinical court should hear the case, backers of Aaron sued in August in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, seeking an order to gain a measure of control over Yetev Lev's assets and administration. The litigation mushroomed from there. !Lawyers for the Williamsburg side accused their opponents of a ''devious scheme'' to maneuver the case out of the court of Justice Melvin S. Barasch. The Williamsburg faction fought to stop the Kiryas Joel side from selling synagogue tickets for the High Holy Days. And they filed contempt of court

charges against a Kiryas Joel supporter who had been barred from politicking at the synagogue. Each side accuses the other of verbal harassment. !The core of the legal fight now centers on which election was legitimate, with each side accusing the other of election fraud and failing to follow the sect's bylaws. A related issue is whether the grand rabbi had the power to expel the board president -- an Aaron supporter -- and whether he even did it. !The Williamsburg faction presented a transcript of a telephone call in which the grand rabbi anoints his son Zalmen as Williamsburg rabbi and banishes the board president, Berl Friedman, who was later elected to head the rival board. !The Kiryas Joel side says it was not the grand rabbi's voice on the tape. Even if it was, they argue that the grand rabbi did not have the right to fire Mr. Friedman. Mr. Friedman said that the grand rabbi had originally wanted Aaron to come to Williamsburg, but that Moses Friedman, the grand rabbi's secretary, acted to stop the selection. !Berl Friedman, who is not related to Moses, declared himself the legitimate board president, and expressed regret that a rift had developed between him and the grand rabbi. ''I was the one who boosted this rabbi for 22 years,'' he said. ''I was the one who endorsed his children to be rabbis, and I helped him out. We were the best friends in the world.'' !Moses Friedman did not return a telephone message seeking comment. But a lawyer for the Williamsburg side, Scott E. Mollen, called the feud ''a battle for the heart and soul and control of the Satmar community. It's also a challenge to the leadership of the grand rabbi.'' !Seen another way, the dispute is a problem all Hasidic groups face sooner or later. !''It's really an argument over who is going to be leading the next generation,'' said Samuel C. Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies and sociology at the CUNY graduate center. ''It's always brothers. You're talking about princes in a royal family. The problem has always been who is going to be next in line.''

!The strife has upset many among the Satmar, an ultra-Orthodox movement with its origins in Satu Mare, a largely ethnic-Hungarian town in Romania. It is one of the more isolationist and anti-Zionist groups in Hasidism, a mystical and ecstatic movement founded in the early 18th century that stresses Talmudic scholarship, living strictly according to Jewish law and a rejection of the outside world's impurities. !The Satmar number about 25,000 in Williamsburg, according to an estimate based on census figures by the Jewish Community Relations Council. An additional 13,000 live in Kiryas Joel. !With families having large numbers of children, housing shortages and poverty are severe, problems addressed by a vigorous system of mutual support and social programs. The feud, along with the legal bills, has added to the stress. !The split is felt in many ways. It has hurt matchmaking. Families from one faction say they do not want a son or daughter to marry someone from the other. It led the Williamsburg side to set up a boy's high school in Forest Hills, Queens. Previously most had gone to the yeshiva in Kiryas Joel. !The division has made itself felt in local politics. Members of the Kiryas Joel faction appeared on the steps of City Hall last July with Mark Green to endorse him for mayor. The Green campaign implied it had the endorsement of the entire leadership, but the Williamsburg establishment suggested the campaign had been duped. And when the local city councilman and Satmar favorite, Ken Fisher, was running for Brooklyn borough president, some Kiryas Joel followers turned against him. !The power struggle is fueled by resentments, prominent Satmars say. Aaron Teitelbaum is said to feel slighted about being passed over. !''Just being the older son is enough to be heir apparent,'' said one Satmar elder, who would speak only on condition of anonymity. !In this deeply traditional community, the sight of a father wounded by a struggle between sons is not pretty. !

''He is our spiritual leader,'' said Isaac Wertheimer, an official with the Williamsburg yeshiva system, of the grand rabbi. ''He is our guidance, how we should go about our family in traditional ways, how we should go about our business life. In his room, he gives out such heart. . . .'' Mr. Wertheimer broke off, choked with emotion. !Family Feud: Will the Real Satmar Please Stand Up? !Fist-fighting, beard-pulling Orthodox Jews. Brotherly break-ins at the local synagogue. Williamsburg hipsters hooked on something besides Ms. Pac Man, calling the throw-down “a hell of a story.” Here’s a tale — Shakespearian in drama — of feuding Hasidic brothers, sons of a grand rabbi with worldwide spiritual power, fighting over succession in a neighborhood otherwise spared from fraternity bar brawls. !The power struggle between Aaron and Zalman Teitelbaum — the sons of Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, head of all Satmars and a prominent figure in Hasidism — took an ugly turn in October this year when police broke up a melee of hundreds of members from the two opposing factions of the Satmar congregation outside a Williamsburg synagogue. The brawl reportedly erupted when Aaron followers forced their way into Zalman’s temple. Twenty-six arrests were made and seven summonses issued. !The feud dates back to 1999 when Grand Rabbi Moses appointed his youngest son Zalman to lead the Williamsburg congregation. Aaron, Moses’s oldest son, was already head of the Satmars in Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic village in upstate New York. The nomination divided the Satmar Empire, and factions built up around the two contenders. !In Hasidic custom, the heritage traditionally goes to the older brother, so from Aaron’s corner the power split was seen as an attempt to make Zalman grand rabbi. From Zalman’s corner the split seemed a natural solution to a congregation that had grown too large for one man to control. Satmar is one of the largest Hasidic communities in New York City, and as a Hasid consults his rebbe on every issue from business plans to family worries and match-making, how would one man handle around 40,000 members in Williamsburg and 17,000 in Kiryas Joel, the Zalman side argued. !

The contest over the dynasty — which includes control of the Satmar synagogues; cemetery; charitable, educational and religious institutions; and corporate name — has resulted in several rounds of litigation. The 91-year old grand rabbi’s authority has been questioned and his well-being has been brought before the court. There have been rumors of judge-shopping and allegations of bribery. !Hasidim on Rodney Street and Lee Avenue in Williamsburg disagree over what’s actually at stake. Mike Gross, 31, a cell phone salesman from Boro Park, says he understands why they are fighting. “You are talking about millions and millions,” of dollars, he says. Moses Green, 25, a factory manager and member of Satmar, says it’s just a little fuss. “Just two to three people,” he says. Emanuel Kohn, 35, who works in real estate, says there’s “nothing going on.” If there’s something in the works, “it’s not a power struggle. It’s about ideology,” he says. !“I don’t personally believe that any of those brothers send out people to fight with their hands. It’s their people,” says Gross of the row that erupted at the Williamsburg shul. Abraham Wiss, 36, a computer technician from Boro Park, differs. “It’s directed by the sons,” says the Satmar follower. !Many Hasidim would like the media to stop writing about what’s happening. “Why do you need to write about it?” says a woman shopping for meat at the Satmar kosher market. “[Fighting] is common when you have a royal chair,” she says. !Another woman, who describes herself as a “follower of the father,” says women don’t get involved. “I don’t have a clear understanding of what the fight is about,” she says. “They are close, and they love each other, and they fight.” In her experience, such matters are common among family, she says. “They are having a little fight, or a big fight, as brothers or sisters.” !Up Bedford Avenue, nearer the $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon signs and the hipster thrift stores, Hasidic life seems far away, but rumors of the feud circulate. Michael M., 24, a bookstore worker on Bedford Avenue, recalls having heard something about the Satmar feud — or maybe a different one. The police had to break up a fist fight over a plaque in memorial of a rabbi, he says. “The other side was upset that the rabbi was said to be dead.” !

“I thought it was kind of funny,” says Michael. “It seems like a silly thing to fight about … but I guess that’s what wars are started over.” !“I don’t want to minimize it,” says John Stevens, 30, a Brooklynite and furniture refinisher. “Obviously if they get into physical violence, it’s important. But in my own world it’s petty.” !“It’s kind of the classic story,” says Irisa Ono, 23, a laboratory worker having coffee on Bedford. “It sucks. Everybody wants to be in the spotlight,” she says, adding that at the same time, “it’s entertaining.” Like much of the crowd mingling on Bedford, Ono knew few details of the feud, but she found it hypocritical “because they preach righteousness.” !“I thought they were Italians,” says Joe Mazzara, 36, a deli counterman on Driggs Avenue. A customer told him about the brawl, and it sounded to Mazzara as if they were “fighting like Italians.” It’s natural that they fight, he says. “If you can’t solve it verbally, you result to the hands.” !Joel Teitelbaum, the founder of the Satmars, came to America from Europe after World War II, and led the congregation until his death in 1979 when his nephew Moses Teitelbaum took over. The recent feud “is about what power struggles have been about for millennia,” says David Pollock of the Jewish Community Relations Council. Since Moses is too old to lead the congregation, the sons are fighting over the succession. !It’s hard for non-Hasidim to understand the Hasidic life, says Pollock. Hasidim are known for their strict adherence to the Torah and their rejection of modern liberal ideas. “Their hats and coats are virtually unchanged since the 18th century,” says Pollock. “Most are insular. They will not watch television or use the internet, although they will use cell phones and BlackBerrys, fearing that outside influences would distract them from a life of study.” !Ultra-Orthodox Hasidim distinguish themselves from non-Hasidic ultra-Orthodox Jews by believing in a charismatic leader, he explains. Each Hasidic linear follows a specific leader, and the rebbe is the central figure in a Hasid’s life. Hasidim rely on their rabbi for many life decisions, and the choice of rabbi is vital. “You need to trust the rabbi,” says Pollock. !

“What these episodes do is give people a glimpse, although a distorted one, of Hasidic life,” says Pollock. “People see the unfortunate underbelly,” he says, of a group that is “basically not violent. It’s charitable.” But news from the insular society only slips out when there’s something as dramatic as violence in the street. !Earlier this fall a Brooklyn judge told the feuding brothers that it was ultimately up to Dad to decide who the real Satmar is, and according to Pollock this will probably be settled in elections. “It’s not going to be a religious choice. It’s going to be a choice between personality and style. Whoever is more charismatic will end up winning,” says Pollock. !“People are going to vote with their feet,” he says. Not their fists. !A Royal Wedding, A Family Affair; Two Hasidic Dynasties Unite in Brooklyn Gala !There were 8,000 guests, not including those peering down from the rooftops. The police closed the streets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to allow for a chuppa, or wedding canopy, and afterward the crowds squeezed so tightly into the reception hall that several people collapsed from heat exhaustion. !If the wedding of Chaim Halberstam and Raiza Meisels lacked the simple charm of a small ceremony (there was a banquet for 5,000), it did not lack fanfare. To many Hasidic Jews, the couple's marriage this week was nothing less than the royal wedding of Brooklyn. !''It's a perfect match,'' said Rabbi Israel Steinberg, a friend of both families. ''There's a boy. There's a girl. He comes from a royal family. She comes from a royal family. It brings the Hasidim together.'' !Known for its ethnic neighborhoods and unpretentious, in-your-face temperament, Brooklyn might seem like a shallow pool for blue blood. But to the Hasidim, the ultra-Orthodox Jews who arrived from Europe after barely surviving the Holocaust, Brooklyn is the place of their rebirth. This week's wedding joined two grandchildren of the leaders of two of the largest Hasidic groups, a union that to many symbolized the renewed vitality of their movement. !

''These are the two biggest dynasties in the Hasidic world,'' said Schabse Sturman, a member of the Bobover Hasidic movement. ''You connect each other. Both of these groups are people who came out of concentration camps.'' !Typically reserved and wary of the modern world, the Hasidim do enjoy a big wedding. The ceremony on Tuesday all but paralyzed Williamsburg, as thousands of residents streamed onto Bedford Avenue and Ross Street to witness the vows in a celebration that began at 4 P.M. and lasted into the early morning hours. Police officials estimated the crowd at 8,000, but the Hasidim put the figure as high as 20,000. At the reception, guests filled three potato sacks with personal checks. !''It was an historic event,'' said Moshe Blau, who attended the ceremony. ''People were waiting for this event. People came from Israel, London, Belgium, Switzerland and Paris. They came from all over the world.'' !What they saw was a marital merger of two leading international Hasidic dynasties, the Bobovers of the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn and the Satmars of Williamsburg. The 19-year-old groom is a grandson of the Bobover Grand Rabbi, Shlomo Halberstam. The 18-year-old bride is a granddaughter of the Satmar Grand Rabbi, Moses Teitelbaum. The two grand rabbis are the descendants of the first Hasidic leaders in Europe. They are also first cousins and close friends. !On Wednesday night, a day after the wedding, 2,000 people gathered at the Bobover Synagogue on 15th Avenue in Borough Park for the first of six celebrations that will continue into next week. The wedding and the six successive celebrations symbolize the seven days in which God created the world. Wearing their best black velvet hats and long black coats, the Bobover men filled bleachers and tables, swaying and singing and clapping as the groom sat beside his grandfather, Grand Rabbi Halberstam. It seemed as much a pep rally as a wedding celebration. !At 91, the Grand Rabbi seemed invigorated, clapping and dancing in a glittery purple frock well past midnight. When he offered a blessing, the boisterous crowd hushed in silence. The groom seemed a little tired; he rested his chin on his hand and listened as one rabbi after another bestowed various Yiddish blessings on him. Eventually, he took the floor to dance with family and friends, though not with his bride.

!She was out of sight, in keeping with Hasidic tradition separating men from women. She and other women held a candle-lighted dinner on the balcony above. ''It's beautiful,'' said one woman, reluctant to speak about the wedding. ''Ask the old men. They know better.'' !The ''old men'' apparently arranged the whole thing. Chaim Sieger, a prominent Bobover, said the couple first met in February or March. The grandfathers, ruminating on a merger, apparently gathered the two families at a private home. Eventually, the couple was left alone in a dining room for a few hours. Like many arranged Hasidic marriages, the initial meeting is critical. !''If she looks at him and doesn't like him, it's over,'' Rabbi Steinberg said. Apparently Ms. Meisels liked Mr. Halberstam. In the spring, after a second meeting, the couple became formally engaged. The grandfathers were pleased. Now that he is married, the young Mr. Halberstam's future is apparently predetermined. ''First, he'll study for a while, and then he'll eventually wind up to be a teacher,'' Mr. Sieger said. One day, he could wind up as the grand rabbi. His lineage is considered ''royal blue blood,'' Mr. Sieger said. !''He has the possibility, because he's a son after a son after a son,'' said Mr. Sieger, noting that the ascension could take decades. ''We're talking 50 years down the line.'' !With the groom dedicating his life to study and the bride expected to bear children and become a homemaker, the first royal residence is expected to be an apartment in Borough Park. Their wedding gifts represent their most immediate income. ''I would say there were about 2,000 or 3,000 gifts,'' Mr. Sieger said. ''The checks filled about three potato sacks. It could be that somebody gave $5 or $5,000. That's what they'll be doing the first week of their new life: making deposits.'' !Though no one would admit to any sense of competition, dynastic Hasidic families have enormous weddings. In 1987, the Grand Rabbi of another Hasidic dynasty, the Munkaczers, had a wedding party for 20,000 people at the Javits Convention Center for the marriage of his only daughter. A 1984 Satmar wedding was held at Nassau Coliseum. The pomp and pageantry are a matter of pride.

!For the older men attending Wednesday night's celebration, the shared sense of history gave the wedding its resonance. The Satmars originated in Hungary and the Bobovers came from Poland. Both groups were nearly exterminated during World War II. When they came to New York, their numbers were minuscule. Because Hasidic families often have 10 or more children, the two groups now have tens of thousands of followers in Brooklyn and more around the world. !''Fifty years ago, there was nothing,'' said Rabbi Steinberg as he stood outside the Bobover Synagogue on Wednesday night. ''What you see over here is rebuilding from the ashes of the Holocaust.'' !