Satmar Rebbe Imprisoned While His Gangster Kids Slug It Out In Secular Court

Who will be grand rebbe's keeper?

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com

New York – Stand-ins for the Cain and Abel of the Satmar Hasidim went to court yesterday to begin an unseemly tug-of-war for access to their 92-year-old father, leader of the world's largest movement of Hasidic Jews.
Children of Aron Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Kiryas Joel's majority congregation, are demanding the court appoint guardians for Moses Teitelbaum.
They say Aron's brother, Zalman Teitelbaum, and his allies have sequestered the Satmar grand rebbe in his house in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and prevented him from attending the weddings and bar mitzvahs of his keeper's enemies.
"What they have there is their own little prison," Steven Finkelstein, their Manhattan attorney, told state Supreme Court Justice John Leventhal in Brooklyn yesterday.
But Zalman Teitelbaum, head rabbi in Williamsburg, and his faction contend the Satmar leader is in good hands and accuse their rivals of sacrificing a holy man's dignity to advance their own quest for power.
"This is an abuse by the petitioners," said Paul Bookson, a Manhattan lawyer representing Moses Teitelbaum, the grand rebbe. "It's an effort to use this court in their ongoing strategy of litigation."
"No one had the temerity to suggest a guardian should be appointed for the pope," said Scott Mallon, yet another Manhattan lawyer, arguing on the Zalman side.
About 30 men from Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel, clad in black Hasidic garb, lined wooden benches in Leventhal's court to hear what is perhaps the most lurid of three Satmar court fights being waged by partisans of the two brothers, known as Zalis and Aronim.
"There is one commandment missing from Aron's Bible: 'Respect your father,''' Jack Kahan, a Zali from Williamsburg, said outside court.
The children of Aron Teitelbaum who are requesting guardians for the grand rebbe claim he suffers from severe dementia and has been in decline since 1997 or earlier.
They also claim that Moses Friedman, the rebbe's longtime personal secretary, and others are denying or sharply limiting access to him, depriving "spiritual uplifting" to relatives and followers who want to see him and be near him.
But the judge repeatedly scoffed at the suggestion that the case had no political motivation and no connection to Aron and Zalman fighting to succeed their father.
"If this is about politics," he said angrily, "then take all these papers you spent thousands of hours on and throw them down the toilet."
He also pressed Finkelstein several times to explain what harm the grand rebbe was suffering under his current minders.
"The grand rabbi has had his schedule greatly curtailed," Finkelstein said. "He's 92," the judge shot back. "My mother goes to sleep at 8."
But Leventhal also suggested sending a court evaluator to spend a day with the Satmar leader to see how he was being cared for. The Zalman side resisted that notion.
After two hours, Leventhal set another court appearance for Nov. 3 to deliver his decision, one that he said neither side might like.

Really nice guys!!To me, they are a pathetic group of seriously retarded people.