For thousands of Satmar Hasidic onlookers shivering outdoors in the center of Kiryas Joel last night, the wedding held great symbolic significance: Their leader, Aron Teitelbaum, was marrying off a child for both the first and last time since becoming Satmar grand rebbe.
There, under an enormous canopy, or chuppah, in front of the main synagogue on Garfield Road, stood Margalis Teitelbaum, the youngest of Rabbi Aron’s eight children, and her husband-to-be, Yoel Rokeach, a young Monsey man with his own distinguished lineage.
Thus began the public portion of the grandest Kiryas Joel wedding in recent years — typical in its marathon length but bigger and more elaborate in most other regards. The all-night celebration was expected to continue until 4 a.m. or so today.
Missing from the assembled throngs were those who believe Rabbi Aron’s younger brother, Zalmen Teitelbaum, inherited the Satmar crown after their father, Moses, died in April. Rabbi Zalmen presides over the main Satmar congregation in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Since the death of the previous grand rebbe and the unusually public succession battle that ensued, the two rival Satmar factions have often turned holiday gatherings into a sort of referendum by trumpeting the size of the crowd each brother can command.
But Aron supporters said yesterday that crowd-size propaganda didn’t matter here and generally pertained to events in Williamsburg, where the two sides have been waging a court battle for control of buildings and other assets.
The Kiryas Joel wedding was so big, they said, because the bride was the last of Rabbi Aron’s children to marry.
The ceremony felt a little like a rock concert. Men and boys wearing dark, furry hats known as shtreimels packed the square in front of the synagogue and pressed against metal barriers surrounding the chuppah.
The event adhered to the Orthodox practice of keeping men and women separated. During the ceremony, women gathered in a parking lot on the opposite side of the chuppah. Afterward, men and women ate and danced in separate locations until being united after midnight.
The men celebrated in a 40,000-square-foot tent erected beside the synagogue. The women were bused to a girls school for their celebration.
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One Response
“Men and boys wearing dark, furry hats known as shtreimels packed the square in front of the synagogue and pressed against metal barriers surrounding the chuppah.” I’ve never been to a rock concert, but it is certainly comes as a surprise to me to learn that the men and boys there wear shtreimlach!