Free Republic

Both Republican and Democratic candidates have been courting Jewish voters ahead of Tuesday’s New York primary vote, looking for an edge in competitive districts with large Jewish populations. Orthodox Jews, who make up a significant portion of New York’s Jewish population, have become an important bloc in the New York primary for both parties. […] While Orthodox Jews tend to lean more Republican than Democrat by a margin of 55% to 31%, some Hasidic sects, including the staunchly anti-Zionist Satmar, have lent their support in the past to Democratic candidates. Yiddish flyers distributed by a pro-Sanders group and bearing the...

In the close-knit world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, community members know the modesty rules as well as Wall Street bankers who show up for work in a Brooks Brothers suit. Women wear long skirts and long-sleeved, high-necked blouses on the street; men do not wear Bermuda shorts in summer. Schools prescribe the color and thickness of girls’ stockings. The rules are spoken and unspoken, enforced by social pressure but also, in ways that some find increasingly disturbing, by the modesty committees. Their power is evident in the fact that of the half dozen women’s clothing stores along Lee Avenue, only one...

On a windy Monday night, Pete’s Candy Store—a bar in Williamsburg with a railcar-shaped performance space in the back—is crammed to capacity with the thin and the bearded. Almost no one is drinking. The mood is pregame, expectant and nervous. We’re at one of the oddest New York City powwows in recent memory: a panel designed to quell a metastasizing dispute between bicyclists and Hasidic Jews. Except no Hasids are present. For a moment, it looks like the bicyclists will have to debate themselves. At immediate issue is the Bedford Avenue bike lane. It’s the longest in Brooklyn and runs...

Barack Obama had some face time with top ultra-Orthodox Jewish community members during his fund-raising swing through Midtown, which came on the heels of Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to leave the race. Obama chatted with three members of the Satmar sect, including representatives from rival factions, as they attended a campaign fund-raiser at a private home on Park Avenue.

The Satmar religious community was on the brink of civil war yesterday as two sons of the late Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum staked claim to the spiritual leadership of the sect. The dispute was headed for a showdown at sundown tomorrow when followers of both brothers plan to flock to Brooklyn to celebrate the Sabbath in the streets of Williamsburg. Aron Teitelbaum, eldest son of the grand rebbe, claimed to have support of 75% of the 120,000 Satmar followers, including sect leaders from Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. "A ceremony proclaiming Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum's appointment will be held...

The dispute over which of Moses Teitelbaum's sons will succeed him as the grand rabbi of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews raged in and out of court for the last six years of his life. Rabbi Teitelbaum's death last night appears unlikely to bring the controversy to a close. Less than two hours after the rabbi died, as tens of thousands of grieving Satmars thronged the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel, N.Y., a judge in Orange County issued several orders. Rabbi Teitelbaum's third son, Zalmen, lives in Williamsburg; his eldest son, Aaron, lives in Kiryas Joel in...

Moses Teitelbaum, the grand rabbi of the Satmar Hasidim, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing sects of Orthodox Jews, died yesterday in Manhattan. He was 91 and lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His family, through spokesmen, said he died at Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized for a number of ailments. Rabbi Teitelbaum became leader of the Satmars in 1980, succeeding his uncle Joel Teitelbaum. In Hasidism, a mystical brand of Orthodox Judaism, the grand rabbi is revered as a kinglike link to God, holding vast sway over members' lives. Joel Teitelbaum had transplanted the tattered remnants...

(IsraelNN.com) Ultra orthodox Satmar Jews and police clashed violently in Jerusalem today following Satmar members' road block protests against building of Highway 6. The protestors want work to stop until ancient graves are relocated. Video films showed that Satmar residents threw blocks and metal objects at police, who burst through a synagogue and violently beat several people in order to free a policeman who was trapped in the synagogue. Filmed pictures showed police overturning tables in the synagogue and kicking people even after the policeman had been rescued.