Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar רבי יואל טייטלבוים מסאטמאר
head of the Satmar court, who rebuilt it in America after the Shoah
A descendant of the Yismach Moshe, Rabbi Yoel was rabbi of Oradea and then of Satmar (Satu Mare). In 5704 he was among those saved on the Kastner train and reached the Land of Israel through Switzerland, later moving to New York.
In Williamsburg he gathered the Hungarian survivors and built a community with its own schools, court and mutual-aid institutions—it grew into one of the largest Hasidic courts in the world. His book Vayoel Moshe sets out a severe anti-Zionist theology: he held the founding of a state before the Messiah to be a breach of the oaths of which the Talmud speaks. That position remains sharply disputed within the Jewish world.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Documents of the period
- chronicles of the Satmar community — the rescue in the Shoah and the rebuilding of the court in New York
Scholarship
- “VHayoel Moshe” — his theology of the Three Oaths and the state
Basis: documents and evidence.