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I think they filed this story under the wrong section. It belongs in 'fiction'. https://twitter.com/HQSatmar/status/1246924255318720513
There were many crucial facts glaringly omitted from this colorful retelling...
It omitted the fact that the day after NYC announced that it was closing public schools, days after yeshiva day schools had closed — on 3/16, R Teitelbaum promised to pursue every legal avenue to ensure that schools remain open, that "Torah & prayer protect us from death.”
It neglected to mention the fact that the Rebbe’s court could have easily wielded its power over local law enforcement in KJ -- that if this were indeed a priority, all institutions would have been shut down immediately. Some shuls in the village were open that week & after.
It neglected to mention that on 3/20, some shuls announced Shabbos minyanim for krias hatorah. Silence from leadership. It was thanks to frum community activists who pressured heavily that they finally canceled.
[I leave it to you to try to parse why vocally dissenting grass-roots activists are not celebrated here as change agents saving lives.]
The story also neglected to mention the contents of the Rebbe’s “powerful chizuk letter to his chasidim” - in which he explained that the women’s long sheitels and lack of tznius cause destruction to come to the home.
(I get that a male journalist reading this thinks this is a small, irrelevant detail. But sheitel-wearing, cosmetic-wearing women, who are apparently causing their brethren to die, may find it somewhat notable.)
It neglected to mention Teitelbaum's significant influence in the Eida Chareidis in Israel, which on March 15 was still calling for yeshivas to remain open, defying Israeli policies from several days earlier.
In local Satmar papers, op-eds were published claiming that the tzionim are shutting down yeshivas because “they hate religion and they always wanted to close the yeshivas - and now they have an answer…"
"The wicked tzionim are the biggest machmirim in all of these laws, in all of these nations,” an op-ed in Der Yid mused. [Editor's note: Indeed. This may explain Israel's...low death rate.]
So why was “eis la’asos l’Hashem heferu Torasecha” not applied here then?
So why was “eis la’asos l’Hashem heferu Torasecha” not applied here then?
(On 3/19, the Eidah Chareidis’ Rav Shternbach finally said it was time to close.) https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/featured/1841400/hagaon-harav-moshe-sternbuch-its-pikuah-nefesh-stay-away-from-one-another.html
The real story is: It took a long time for reality to dawn on many rabbanim, & well beyond the Satmar community, too. As Rav Uren Reich of Lakewood mournfully said — “God afflicted us with the plague of blindness.” Now thankfully many understand the dangers & take it seriously.
Like all true stories, this was actually a complicated mess. Leaders are humans who make mistakes. But there is little room for complexity, when it is inconvenient for the masses to know about it, right? We should focus on feeding them heart-warming stories now, right?
We frum Jews need to look at the facts and stop revising history if we want to save communities from repeating dangerous mistakes — because lives are at stake. In fact, they’re at stake this very week, with many intergenerational Sedarim that will still take place.
I share this less because I am concerned about this specific story — and more because, if there ever was a time in which serious, fact-based frum journalism was desperately needed — this is it.
