Understanding "Unorthodox," Part 1 Satmar History and Rituals

Understanding "Unorthodox," Part 1
          Satmar History and Rituals
                           Source Sheet by Ilana Schachter

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Hasidism and the Satmar Community: Background

A Brief Introduction to Hasidim

The Hasidim, or "pious ones" in Hebrew, belong to a special movement within
Orthodox Judaism, a movement that, at its height in the first half of the
nineteenth century, claimed the allegiance of millions in Eastern and Central
Europe--perhaps a majority of East European Jews. Soon after its founding in
the mid-eighteenth century by Jewish mystics, Hasidism rapidly gained
popularity in all strata of society, especially among the less educated common
people, who were drawn to its charismatic leaders and the emotional and
spiritual appeal of their message, which stressed joy, faith, and ecstatic prayer,
accompanied by song and dance. Like other religious revitalization movements,
Hasidism was at once a call to spiritual renewal and a protest against the
prevailing religious establishment and culture...After World War II, Hasidism
was transplanted by immigrants to America, Israel, Canada, Australia, and
Western Europe. In these most modern of places, especially in New York and
other American cities, it is now thriving as an evolving creative minority that
preserves the language--Yiddish--and many of the religious traditions of pre-
Holocaust Eastern European Jewry.

The Hasidic ideal is to live a hallowed life, in which even the most mundane
action is sanctified. Hasidim live in tightly-knit communities (known as
"courts") that are spiritually centered around a dynastic leader known as a rebbe,
who combines political and religious authority. The many different courts and
their rebbes are known by the name of the town where they originated: thus the
Bobov came the town of Bobova in Poland (Galicia), the Satmar from Satu Mar
in present-day Hungary, the Belz from Poland, and the Lubavitch from Russia...

...The great majority of the approximately two hundred thousand American
Hasidim live and work in enclaves in the heart of New York City, amid a
number of vital contemporary cultures very different from their own...There are
approximately forty-five thousand Satmar Hasidim in Williamsburg, over fifty

thousand Bobover Hasidim in Boro Park, and at least fifteen thousand Lubavitch
in Crown Heights.
- From "A Life Apart," PBS
https://www.pbs.org/alifeapart/intro.html

Satmar Hasidic Sect
Ultraconservative, anti-Zionist Hasidic sect founded in 1928 by Yo’el
Teitelbaum (Reb Yoelish; 1887–1979) in the town of Szatmár (Hun., more
properly Szatmárnémeti; now Rom., Satu Mare), the youngest son of the
Hasidic rebbe of Sighet, Ḥananyah Yom Tov Lipa Teitelbaum (1836–1904),
author of the biblical commentary Kedushat Yom Tov (1905).

Yo’el Teitelbaum moved to Satmar as a youth and soon gathered a following. He
was elected rabbi of the Subcarpathian town of Orsova (in Yiddish, commonly
Orsheva) in 1911 but maintained a residence in Satmar. He became rabbi of
Carei (Nagykároly) in 1926 and in 1928 was invited to take up the post of rabbi
of Satmar. Fierce opposition to him arose, and he was able to occupy the
rabbinate only in 1934.

Yo’el’s older brother, Ḥayim Tsevi (1880–1926), and the latter’s son, Yekuti’el
Yehudah (1912–1944), who died in Auschwitz, were the last two Sigheter
rebbes in Europe. Yo’el survived the Holocaust by escaping Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp aboard the controversial rescue train to Switzerland
arranged by Rezső (Rudolph) Kasztner in 1944. He spent the subsequent two
and a half years in Palestine and arrived in the United States in 1947, where
he reestablished the Satmar Hasidic Court in the Williamsburg section of
Brooklyn, New York. In 1953, Teitelbaum, though he had remained in
Williamsburg, was appointed president of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox
community, the Edah Ḥaredit, then dominated by the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta
faction.

During the 32 years of his leadership of his sect in the United States, Yo’el
attracted a large following from a broad cross section of ultra-Orthodox Jewry.
Thousands of Galician, Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovakian survivors of the
Holocaust, many of whom had been members of other, mostly smaller, Hasidic
sects that were completely annihilated by the Nazis, became his devout
disciples....Satmar is today the world’s largest Hasidic sect, with some
100,000 followers. Its central community remains in Williamsburg, with
significant branches in Kiryas Yo’el (a Hasidic village of some 15,000 residents
in Monroe Township, New York), Los Angeles, Montreal, Antwerp, London,
Buenos Aires, and Jerusalem.
- From YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Yiddish

With the exception of the northeastern Yiddish of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jews
and other, mostly minor, groups based in Jerusalem, Haredi Yiddish today is of

Central or, to a lesser extent, Southeastern Yiddish provenance. The Satmar
Jews, who, according to their tradition, originate from the so-called
Unterland, hold a particularly prominent position among today ’ s Haredim.
The Unterland mainly includes the low-lying country between the tributaries of
the Tisa ( the Bodrog / Laborec and the Someş ) in the northwestern corner of
Romania, in East Slovakia, and in Carpathian Ruthenia...The term ‘ Satmar’
derives from the name of the town Satu Mare ( Hungarian Szatmár né meti ),
which has been part of Romania since 1920 and, during the interwar years, grew
to become an important center for Hasidism... The Satmars form the largest
group among today ’ s Haredim and, therefore, occupy a key position in
terms of the use of Yiddish. This is because they support and promote the
use of Yiddish in daily life much more vigorously than all other Haredim.
Consequently, they are behind most of the Haredi Yiddish-language publications
appearing in and around New York City.
- Steffen Krogh, "How Satmarish is Haredi Satmar Yiddish?"

Traditional Clothing and Head Covering

When I was 17, a matchmaker introduced me to my future husband. My family
and I knew it was an auspicious match from the get-go: The boy and I were both
Satmar Hasidism; we came from the same town, Kiryas Joel; we were socialized
in similar circles, and we observed the same religious rules. But what clinched
the deal was the fact that our mothers wore the same head coverings. They
both shaved their heads and wore short wigs, or sheitels, with pillbox or
beret hats on top. This indicated, essentially, that our families were cut from
the same cloth...You can tell a lot about an Orthodox woman by the type of wig
or other head covering she wears. Like the length of her skirt or the texture of
her stockings, a woman’s headgear announces to the world her family’s tradition
and her community’s standards. In Hasidic communities especially, the head
coverings of the mothers of the bride and groom are often the first consideration
in arranging a shidduch, a match...[A] woman’s headgear indicates her family
level of piety and, more importantly, her mother’s ways.
Pious Jewish women have been covering their hair for hundreds of years. “Hair
on a woman is ervah [nakedness, impropriety],” the Talmud declares, and
therefore it needs to be covered. Jewish women in Italy were donning wigs as
early as the 16th century. As wig-wearing became popular in Europe in the 18th
century — think Marie Antoinette — Jewish women followed suit, with rabbis
both condemning and condoning the practice on modesty grounds. Long after
wigs fell out of fashion with European elites, Jewish women kept wearing them.
Today, more Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs than ever before...
Hasidic Jews belong to the mystical and arch-traditionalist ultra-Orthodox
movement founded in the 18th century by the religious leader Baal Shem Tov.
They reside overwhelmingly in places like Kiryas Joel, Monsey and New Square
in upstate New York, and Williamsburg and Boro Park in Brooklyn. Hasidic
women observe complex rules and traditions when it comes to covering
their heads. The most pious Hasidic women don’t even wear wigs; they
shave their heads according to their specific sect’s customs, and cover them
with a solid or floral scarf called a tichel or with a round woven piece of silk
called a shpitzel, which is then topped with a scarf or a hat. For women who
do wear wigs — on top of shorn heads or natural hair — however, there are
several options to choose from...

-- Frimet Goldberger, "Taxonomy of the Sheitel," The Forward, August 4, 2014

There are layers, both literal and spiritual, to getting dressed as a Hasidic person
or an ultra-Orthodox Jew. It’s like a math equation. For women, there is often a

“shell”—a cap-sleeved shirt to cover the collarbone—and then another shirt,
sometimes with a collar and typically of a solid hue, that must reach past the
elbow. Depending on the sect, or the individual’s or family’s religious
preference, there is thick opaque hosiery, sometimes in a peachy orange hue,
branded with raised quarter-inch seams running down the back. There is, of
course, a skirt that goes below the knee. (Women are not allowed to wear pants.)
For some Jewish women, like those belonging to the extreme Bobov or the
Satmar enclaves in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Borough Park (and upstate
New York), a skirt has to reach exactly three inches below the kneecap—no
longer, no shorter. The idea of modest dressing is referred to as tznius, a law
mandated by the Torah that has later been translated, often with creative liberty,
for each community by its respective rabbis and rebbes. These men will dictate
details like wig style or skirt length.
-- Liana Satenstein, From "Off the Beaten Path," Vogue, March 8, 2018

Discussion Questions:

1. What characteristics of the Satmar community are portrayed in the series?

2. In what ways do language, dress and rituals unify the Satmar community? In what ways do
they isolate the community from the outside world? How are boundaries constructed within the
community?

3. The Holocaust plays a prominent and influential role in Satmar identity and practice. How
does Esty internalize the Holocaust growing up? In what ways does she carry her
understanding of the Holocaust to Berlin?

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