Satmar Rebbe cries, rips shirt while praying for 'rebuilding of Jerusalem'
Eda Haredit chief avoids Old City citing law that Jews must not rebel against gentiles, area unholy since '67.
By Anshel PfefferThe Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum cried and ripped his shirt Thursday during an hour of prayer "for the rebuilding of Jerusalem" on Mount Scopus, his followers said.
The prayer event was part of the rabbi's visit to Israel. He is the leader of the Eda Haredit, an anti-Zionist and ultra-Orthodox group.
In keeping with Satmar ideology which states Jews must not "rebel" against gentiles and a Jewish state and army in the land of Israel is heretical, the Rebbe has refused to visit the Old City of Jerusalem since it was captured in the 1967 Six Day War by Israel Defense Forces.
The Rebbe tore his shirt as a sign of mourning at the destruction of the Temple 1937 years ago.
On Wednesday night, at the dedication of a new Satmar compound in central Jerusalem, he criticized the ultra-Orthodox for accepting government money for its school system.
Teitelbaum called Education Ministry demands that ultra-Orthodox curricula include government-stipulated "core subjects" as a pre-condition to receiving state funding "is proof that the way of Satmar is right."
The Rebbe said of his predecessor and uncle Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum "My uncle foresaw the interference of the profane Zionist government in the curriculum as a condition for funding."
Teitelbaum added that Satmar's foundation of its new compound on the site of Jerusalem's symbolically secular Edison Cinema "is proof that we can build without the help of the profane government."
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And his chusid Chaim Wercberger was crying when he got a good demm beating from the bobover boys so long in fighting Reb moshe dovid
Where in the Torah does it state that Jews are not allowed to have a state. As I remember it, not being a scholar, the people of ancient Judah cried that they wanted to be like the other nations of the world. That's why they asked to have a king, and why Saul was anointed. The trouble is that these nut jobs want to have a fundamentalist Jewish religious state and if they got it, would probably be a Jewish version of wpnderful Islamic states like Saudi Arabia and Iran that we are dealing with. Has anhyone forgotten that these Hasidic a-holes beat a woman on a state owned bus line, because she refused to go to the back of the bus? We in America had to deal with this kind of insanity before the civil rights movement.
Correction: Rabbi Aharon is a son of Rabbi Moshe. The uncle refferenced was Rabbi "Yoel", the first Satmar Rabbe.