As the 2022 election season has worn on, it has become increasingly clear to every Orthodox Jew in New York State that there are two issues at the forefront of this election: yeshiva education and crime/bail reform.
That being said, I’m bewildered that we, as part of the broader Orthodox Jewish community in New York, are still left wondering where some of our brethren stand on the crucial upcoming elections. Specifically, we are still waiting to see who the two Satmar factions will endorse for governor.
This is particularly surprising to me because in 2018, one of our foremost manhigei hador, Hagaon Harav Aharon Teitelbaum shlit”a, declared war on the New York State Education Department over its adversarial stance against yeshivas.
At the annual Chof Alev Kislev event, Rav Aharon shlit”a, with his inimitable leadership, boldly stated: “I hereby declare that Klal Yisroel will not bow down or surrender to the wicked, not even before the Commissioner of Education, and with great devotion we will be able to educate our children in Torah education. We have had many situations in the past demanding mesirus nefesh for the Torah HaKedosha, and also today, we will launch a major war against the Commissioner of Education in any way [necessary] without compromises and agreements.”
“Therefore,” the venerated rebbe added, “we will not sit idly by, but we will fight a fierce battle over our right to live in our religion, and B’ezras Hashem, we will cancel this terrible gezeira and will not obey the Education Commissioner in any way. Of course, it will only happen if there is achdus. We must put all the petty politics aside and to seriously unite all the communities and unite all of the chareidi Jews, to exploit the ties with the leaders of state, to the federal court, and B’Shem Hashem, Na’ase V’Natzliach!”
With this backdrop, shouldn’t the choice for endorsement in the New York gubernatorial race be obvious? Shouldn’t the decision for Satmar be clear and straightforward? We have one candidate, Rep. Lee Zeldin, who has vowed time and time again that he will stand up for yeshivos and ensure that Albany bureaucrats will not be allowed to interfere in the chinuch of our children. On the other side, we have an incumbent governor in Kathy Hochul who has expressed no support at all for yeshivos, despite our incessant pleas. What is even the question?
Harav Aharon, in his wisdom, declared war on the state’s Department of Education. If we are indeed waging a battle against them, why not pursue victory by endorsing a staunch supporter of yeshivos?
Rabbanim spanning the gamut – from Litvish to Chassidish to Sefard, and from all stripes and backgrounds – have endorsed Zeldin, stating in no uncertain terms that we must do everything we can to reverse the trend of anti-yeshiva bigotry and targeting. Why has Satmar not joined them?
The Satmar community has tens of thousands of voters in it who could quite literally be the difference in the gubernatorial election. They can be the difference between yeshivos being allowed to continue to operate al derech hatorah, or to chas v’shalom be thrown to the proverbial wolves.
Where does Satmar stand on this issue, and why is it not unwaveringly with Rep. Lee Zeldin? I simply don’t understand.
It is truly with bated breath that I and all of Klal Yisroel await what will hopefully be Satmar’s full-throated endorsement of Rep. Lee Zeldin for New York Governor.
Yaakov D – Far Rockaway
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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43 Responses
why is it not unwaveringly with Rep. Lee Zeldin? 2 Reasons:-
1) They are too dearly in love with their girl friend hochul & her monetary promises to them
2) Lee Zeldin is too pro-Zionist to be worthy of their endorsement
yaakov D why dont you ask them ” yelamdeinu rabeinu”? you can daven shachris in their minyan & go over to them “FOR FREE”? you also dont know that kochul met the rebbe in kj together with his wife & daughter
Wow!! So powerful! This has bothered me a lot as well. If we mean the chinuch then why are the Hasidic leaders quite on this?!? Isn’t the money that we receive from the government for chinuch? If they aren’t giving you the rights to teach the chinuch, what do you have from the Money?!?!
Satmar is recently reported to have paid $8mn for what is most important to them: cheating and thievery.
A vote for Hochul is a vote for crime and hate.
!!!!SHE MUST BE DEFEATED!!!!
MI L’HASHEM ELAI! Yaacov D. Must Stand Up For Chinuch, come to KJ with your high school and college degrees and send your kids to Yiddish-only schools.
What do YOU know about the Satmar education?
I’m actually happy that we are hearing crickets from the Rebbes on whom we should vote. Rebbes and askanim should not be endorsing politicians. It’s ridiculous. Fist of all, Jews cannot vote for politicians who support abomination. As Jews this should be the basis of whom we vote for, not endorsements of those who we think will win or give us money by providing more programs or who will support out moisdos…we see we have gone down this road but still the noose gers tighter with these politicians and department of “education” making more and more problems. Zeldin has a pervert for running mate and should not be endorsed either. You people are putting too much trust in these self-service politicians. No one knows who will win and even if Zeldin wins what type of governor he’ll actually be. So again, we need to stop this cycle of endorsementts and block votes, this is not how frum Jews should behave in golus.
If they endorse Houhle They will have single handily destroyed what the litvishei rabonoim, the lawyers for Agudah and others have tried to accomplish the last few years against the SED. The democrats will be laughing at us. They will be giving a new understanding to the saying you are your own worst enemy.
The Rebbes will have the last laugh. They have bitachon and leave the outcome of the education battle in the hands of Hashem. They have nothing to gain by endorsing Zeldin who has many positions they oppose and is Jewish to boot.
We don’t know everything. They are not stupid. Maybe she promised them that behind the scenes she will modify the conditions on the education gezeira without making noise. Keep in mind that they also got away with a very favorable settlement in regard to the recent scandal. They may not be able to publicly stab her in the back.
The bottom line is, the public is not privy to everything going on behind the scenes
one can never doubt daas Torah this is how kfira and the Reform movement started, Satmar have heshbonos. The Litvaks cant tell Satmar what to do and in fact Satmar didnt even attend the Siyum Hashas due to some of the speakers there.
Happy the author is nothing else going on in his life that this is only has to worry about, who the Satmar Rebbes going to endorse. The people there are a lot smarter than you give them credit for. They don’t necessarily need to be told whom to vote for. They do have brains. It might be the people in the five towns area that wait to hear whom they vote for but not them.
>>>The Rebbes will have the last laugh. They have bitachon and leave the outcome of the education battle in the hands of Hashem.
If they really had that type of Bitochen then they would not meet with or endorse any politician at all. Once someone is in the business of meeting candidates and making endorsements they can not claim they have Bitochen Hashem will deal with the outcomes.
>>>They have nothing to gain by endorsing Zeldin who has many positions they oppose and is Jewish to boot.
But they have no problem with meeting people like Schumer who is also Jewish and has a lot more position they (should) oppose
Note: I’m responding to you personally ONLY . Neither of the Satmar Rebbes have said what you attribute to them thinking.
This is why chasidim are always ahead of the litvish in developing communities.
According to the statistical website FiveThirtyEight, Kathy Hochul has a 97% chance of winning this election. I think a lot of frum people are fooling themselves when they think Zeldin has much of a chance or that Satmar is going to make or break it.
Someone here said it’s because they have more Bitachon???
So Bitachon means selling all morals to the highest bitter? – just amazing…
“jersey jew” sounds like someone who just landed here from a different planet…
My hunch is, they know this time they must really vote for Zeldin no matter what, but they won’t formally endorse and command unless they get their perks promised. When they do – everything is kosher enough to vote for, as we saw in the past…
Yeh, but we really have to get off food stamps and all other social welfare programs. They use these statistics to determine whether we got a decent education. These statistics are studied by neighborhoods.
Dear YWN
Why as a yira shemyaim website and platform are you not blocking people who say such disgusting non toeles blatant loshon hora. I can’t read comments anymore. Theres no excuse for people like avreimi to post such garbage.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
lakewhut: Boro park, Williamsburg and lakewood all either majority or soon to be majority hasidim towns were developed by litvaks btw.
This is a ridiculous letter. You go lead a community of 25K members, and your perspective in many things will probably change. There are no other rabanim or roshei yeshivos in the tri state area that maintain the positions they do, to compare to.
This is like when some were screaming at Rav Aron Leib Z’L when he was saying certain things to bnei brakers that they didn’t want to hear, and that was because once he was in a position of mass leadership it’s a whole different story.
lakewoodbt,
That statement is actually incorrect. Name me one litvishe developer in Williamsburgh Boro Park or Lakewood??? Unless your defiition of Litvak is a down hat, but most galitziyaner, polish and hungarian heimish yiden wore bend down hats. Litvishe were not developers.
Actually, name me ten true litvaks period (besides for the alte mirer’s), unfortunately, Lita was mostly wiped out and the rest that did not go to yeshivas did not really stay frum.
Satmar has probably received a promise from Hochul, who allows them to rip off the state in many ways that matter. Adams and Hochul are as corrupt as they are
LA Mother – what is your problem? The Central United Talmudical Academy [Satmar] recently agreed to pay $8 million after admitting to widespread fraud. Satmar, which operates the largest yeshiva in New York State, acknowledged illegally diverting money from federal food aid and other programs.
Or LAmother, in your book is acknowledging illegally diverting money from federal food aid and other programs, a Kiddush Hashem?
The irony is hard to ignore Those who usually sincerely respect Satmar are now the ones who are critiquing. While those who normally bashing and belittling their leadership are all the sudden defending them.strange though typical?
All u Satmar haters. Its not so poshit. Hochul is an incumbent and u dont play around w it.
As a Satmar person I voted already for Zeldin and many satmar people will too. Hochul thinks she got R Ahrons and R Zl endorsements and is happy and none of them came out to endorse her.
She did guve an empty promise that she wont allow our chinuch to be tarnished and that was it. No official endorsements.
Satmar is overwhelmingly voting for Zeldin. No monies or empty promises is winning the Rabbanim to officially endorse her.
Im not a chasid from the Rebbes but sounds like theyre playing a smart political game here.
והכסף יענה את הכל
Who cares if the Democrat incumbent openly promotes Mishkav Zachor and for a party against our Children’s chinuch.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
Yaakov D sounds like an idiot who just toes the R party line. Jews vote for whoever is good for the Jews. Not just because someone has an R next to his name. Reb Aharon shlit”a knows a lot more about what’s good for the Jews than Yaakov D
Yaakov D: Who are you to dare even question who our foremost manhigei hador, Hagaon Harav Aharon Teitelbaum shlit”a will or will not endorse? As one of the Gedolei HaDor, as you acknowledge in your above temper tantrum, he knows far better than you’ll ever know what is the right approach to the election.
Lets not be so busy with UTA admitting fraud aand paying $8 million dollars.
Did we all forget the Lakewood scandal 4 years ago when the Feds raided many homes because they had Food stamps and Section 8 when they owed many properties..So when it comes to fraud no one is so erlich its only the problem with the ones who get caught…
a great Gadol said decades ago when asked a similar question how great REBBEH passes away how those so greatly inferior are considered entitled to succeed him
his response: you’re playing chess and the king falls off the board and rolls under the furniture. You search for it but you cannot find it.
you search some more. so what is to be done? You take the top of a little vegetable and put in place of the king. because The Game must Go On.
explain how that is supposed to work. A person fights with his brother in order to wear fancy peltz .His ehh.. record for KLAL except in perhaps the most narrowest sense . And somehow is expert in this field
For Satmar it’s always been about the Sheqels. Everything else is way down the list of importance. Everyone knows that.
@”Ish Hashalom” BTW a lot of alter Mirrers also were not real “Litvaks”.
I don’t think it will make a difference to try and change these Satmers mind. You’re just wasting your time.
Interesting that the indignant moral question posed by the author is why Satmar has failed to endorse Zeidlin, as if that’s a more pressing moral question for them than is their public admission of systematic fraud (systematic theft and fraud on an organizational level — not “just” theft and fraud by groups of individuals).
I was tempted to get in on the bashing but I went through the comments and I’m horrified how much hate there is.
We need Moshiach NOW!
May we merit the geulah sheleimah teikif umeyad mamash!
Vote with your mind, not someone else’s. Love all! Stop hating! This chat is awesome
I find it distatasful to use the words “”mi l’Hashem Elia” for this article. You are talking here about electing a Jew who has married a non-Jew and has a pervert as a running mate …