Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was born in 1887 to his father Rabbi Hanania Yom-Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Sighet, the capital of Maramureş County, Hungary. The father was a Rebbe to his Hasidim, headed the local yeshiva, and was one of...
moreRabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was born in 1887 to his father Rabbi Hanania Yom-Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Sighet, the capital of Maramureş County, Hungary. The father was a Rebbe to his Hasidim, headed the local yeshiva, and was one of the top leaders of Hungarian Orthodoxy. During his childhood, Rabbi Yoel was known as a prodigy but was not destined to continue the family’s Hasidic or rabbinic dynasty, as this role was reserved for his older brother - Rabbi Haim Tzvi. At seventeen, soon after his father’s death and the ordination of his older brother as his successor, the newlywed Rabbi Yoel and his wife were forced to leave Sighet.
They settled in nearby Satmar (Satu Mare) where Rabbi Yoel began gathering a small group of disciples. Several years later he was elected as chief rabbi of the remote village Orshiva, but during World War I he returned to Satmar and established a small yeshiva, dividing his time between Satmar and Orshiva. In 1926 he was elected as chief rabbi of Kroly (Carei) in Transylvania, Romania and two years later he was elected chief rabbi of Satmar. This appointment faced substantial public opposition and it took Rabbi Yoel six years of fierce and scandalous struggle until he eventually took office in 1934. During that waiting period he also tried to run for a rabbinate office in other communities, including that of the Edah Haredit (the ultra-Orthodox community) of Jerusalem.
Rabbi Yoel was known to have a stubborn, controversial and argumentative personality. Wherever he wanted to serve, public debates arose and the newspapers accused him in using improper means during the election process. At the same time, he was also known as a religious zealot, and several extremist Orthodox groups acknowledged him as their spiritual leader. Following his ordination as chief rabbi of Satmar, Rabbi Yoel gained an important leadership role among the extreme-Orthodox, and became known for his unwavering opposition to modernity, Zionism and even to the ultra-Orthodox party Agudat Israel. In the late 1930s, after a long public campaign, he was elected to the leadership of the Central Bureau of the Orthodox Jewish communities of Transylvania. In that position he was able to influence the lives of over one hundred and fifty thousand religious Jews in that region.
In his personal life, Rabbi Yoel suffered a series of tragedies. After losing his father at an early age, he was expelled from his hometown, Sighet. He and his wife could not give birth to a son, and two of their three daughters died young and childless. His chronically ill wife died soon thereafter, as well as Rabbi Yoel’s mother and brother. He married again, but although his wife was young and healthy, she too did not bear him any children. Following this second marriage, Rabbi Yoel and his only daughter became estranged and they hardly spoke until she died, also at a young age. This surviving daughter was also barren meaning that Rabbi Yoel had no grandchildren to succeed him.
During World War II Rabbi Yoel was involved in various rescue operations for refugees who fled Poland. As danger grew, he sought to get a certificate that will allow him and his close family to immigrate to Palestine. Failing that, he abandoned his community and escaped along with a small group of friends from Satmar, but was caught and sent to the ghetto of Cluj. He was spared from being sent to Auschwitz as he was included in the small group saved by Zionist activist Israel Kasztner’s rescue train. He and the rest of the passengers were taken to Bergen-Belsen, where they were detained for a few months. Later the group was released to Switzerland where Rabbi Yoel stayed for a few months. He did not return to lead and to comfort the survivors that returned to Satmar after the Holocaust, nor did he join the relief operations conducted by other rabbis in the refugee camps in Germany.
After his stay in Switzerland, Rabbi Yoel decided to settle in Jerusalem. The leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community, who were aware of his aggressive and argumentative personality, shunned away from him. As a result, the institutions he established failed and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. His only hope to repay his tremendous debt was by raising funds in the United States. Humiliated and destitute Rabbi Yoel was forced to travel to the land he always considered the most hostile and spiritually dangerous environment for Orthodox Jews.
After arriving in the United States, it became clear to Rabbi Yoel that he will never be able to raise enough funds to save his institutions in Jerusalem. Having no place to return to, he decided to settle in New York. Oddly enough, it was in this notorious “New World” that Rabbi Yoel was able not only to establish his own congregation, but also to significantly expand and develop it. Within a few years he attracted a large circle of supporters and devotees and created a congregation which, he claimed, resembled that of an East-European “Shtetel.”
However, in order to succeed in his mission, Rabbi Yoel had to apply significant un-traditional innovations that were inconceivable in the East-European “Shtetel.” He established a Hasidic education system, including one for girls, which introduced secular teachings and summer camps. He also encouraged his followers to go to work or to establish their own small businesses. His delegates cooperated with government and municipal officials who helped the poor Hasidim to get public housing, professional training and social benefits. That innovative spirit was one of the main reasons his Hasidic court grew rapidly and prospered economically. Rabbi Yoel used funds gathered by his adherents to support the Eda Haredit in Jerusalem, and in 1952, just a few years after he was forced to leave Jerusalem, he returned triumphant to be declared president of the Edah Haredit.
One of the reasons for Rabbi Yoel’s unparalleled success, beyond his personal charisma and leadership qualities, was his anti-Zionist and Extreme Orthodox ideology. His views were published in two major books, Va-Yoel Moshe – published in the late 1950s, and Al Ha-Geula Ve-Al Ha-Temura – published after the Six Days War. These books were re-printed numerous times, and new editions are still being printed to this day. The radical ideas expressed in these books still affect and guide the Satmar Hasidic court and some of the other Hungarian courts, as well as some marginal groups of zealots, also known as Neturei Karta.
At the time of his death, in 1979 and still today, Rabbi Yoel was undoubtedly one of the most recognized and influential Jewish leaders in the post-Holocaust era. His community had tens of thousands of Hasidim and the education system he established was amongst the largest in the Jewish world outside Israel. Ideas expressed by Rabbi Yoel have influenced the rest of Orthodox society and thus the Jewish society in general. Today, about forty years after his death, the “Satmar” trademark is still strong and still synonymous with religious zealotry. The spiritual and practical foundations laid by Rabbi Yoel continue to fuel the ever-growing expansion of the Satmar Hasidic court that today has more than a hundred thousand followers worldwide.