All the Young Jews: In the Village of Kiryas Joel, New York, the Median Age Is 13
When he moved to Satu Mare, Romania, in 1905, Joel Teitelbaum was 18 years old. He was serious and confident, and charismatic too. He studied scripture. He washed himself before every prayer. At his bar mitzvah five years earlier, he had lectured for hours about the sanctity of the sabbath. His father had been grand rabbi of the Siget Hasidic movement in the Kingdom of Hungary, and when he died in 1904, Joel's older brother inherited the title. Some believed Joel was the more fitting leader, and when he left for Romania, they followed.
When school gets out, adults rope off parking lots, and the streets turn into a playground at recess.
"Satu Mare" translates in Yiddish as "Satmar," and shortly after his arrival Teitelbaum proclaimed himself Rebbe of Satmar. There were many other rabbis in the city, all of them more prominent than Teitelbaum, but he didn't care. When the locals began to build a mikveh, a ritual bath, for the women, Teitelbaum deemed the location too close to the men's mikveh and asked community leaders to build elsewhere. They refused. One night Teitelbaum and his followers tore down the partially constructed building.
Over the years, his following grew larger. By the 1930s, his rabbinical seminary was the largest in the city, with more than 300 students. His hard-line piety had attracted the more religious Hasidim. He spoke out against leaders who pushed to modernize the faith. He denounced the Zionist movement as heresy and declared that there should be no Jewish state until the coming of the Messiah.
"Joel added mystical dimensions to his opposition to Zionism," says Allan Nadler, director of Jewish studies at Drew University in eastern New Jersey. "He argued that Zionism is the manifestation of demonic forces in the world. He went so far as to say Zionism was the cause of the Holocaust."
The German army reached Satu Mare in 1944. Teitelbaum escaped by train. He settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, two years later, and a group of his followers joined him there. In 1947 he registered his movement as a religious corporation and named it Congregation Yetev Lev, after his grandfather. Teitelbaum saw opportunity for the Satmars in America. He hoped to re-create the shtetls of 19th-century Hungary -- traditional Jewish communities that were tight-knit and insular.
Samuel Heilman, a Jewish studies professor at Queens College, says Teitelbaum believed that "it was possible to live in this country in a way that was resistant, in the most scrupulous way, against any kind of assimilation."
By the 1960s Teitelbaum had concluded that this would not be possible in Brooklyn. His congregation had multiplied, and the community's boundaries pushed up against the surrounding secular world. But he had seen that there was another way for the Satmars to live. In 1954, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Twersky had bought 130 acres of land upstate in Rockland County and built a community for his followers. He named the place New Square, after the Ukrainian town where the Skver Hasidic movement was born. Teitelbaum began to search for a new home for the Satmars.
"Preserving the purity of the Satmar way of life was a paramount goal," says David Meyers, a Jewish studies professor at UCLA. "They wanted to create a site of insularity, where they would live according to their communal norms."
The land had to be past the suburbs but still close enough for a daily commute into the city. Teitelbaum selected Mount Olive, New Jersey, a small, wooded town of fewer than 4,000 people. In 1962 he and some of his followers tried to buy a parcel of land. The locals pushed back, and the Satmars were not able to complete the purchase. They could not buy land on Staten Island, either. Teitelbaum decided to continue the search in secret.
By now he had built a team of advisers to help oversee the congregation, which had grown to more than 40,000 members. The leadership circle included rabbis, businessmen, and Teitelbaum's nephew Moses Teitelbaum. The grand rebbe's most trusted adviser, though, was his second wife, Faiga Shapiro Teitelbaum. (His first wife had died young, his three children even younger.) He was 50 when he married Faiga; she was 25. But she was smart and compassionate, wise beyond her years. When a stroke left Teitelbaum nearly paralyzed in 1968, Faiga took over his leadership duties. The congregation's members and advisers trusted her judgment. She was in charge when the Satmar leaders made their play for land in Monroe Township, 50 miles north of Manhattan in Orange County.
The land was cheap: Years earlier, state leaders had drawn up grand blueprints to turn the area into a bustling suburb, and speculators bought up many lots. But the development never transpired and the speculators were happy to cut their losses. They saw little value in the densely wooded acres miles away from the nearest commercial center. It was perfect for the Satmars. They found a Canadian businessman to make the purchases for them and began building homes in 1974. Twelve families moved in.
Tensions with the town leadership surfaced immediately. Monroe's zoning regulations allowed only one single-family home per acre, but the Satmars had built three-family homes. They argued that the town's zoning policy restricted their ability to practice their religion. The two sides battled in court.
Then, in 1977, the Satmars petitioned to form a new village. According to state law, 600 residents on connected properties could incorporate into their own municipality. A municipality sets its own zoning rules. The 300 or so acres in the plan comprised land owned entirely by Satmars. The state approved the petition. The Satmars named the new village Kiryas Joel, which in Hebrew means "Village of Joel."
The locals built a towering stone synagogue, but besides that and the homes, there wasn't much else. There were few places to work. Every morning the men of Kiryas Joel would board a bus bound for jobs in New York City. The children were schooled at home. There was only one grocery store, in the basement of somebody's house. "It was a struggle," says Abe Schnitz, one of the men who commuted into the city. "But we knew eventually we need to expand."
Grande Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum died in 1979. He was 92. His body was the first buried in the village cemetery. The Satmars mourned their founder for a year. Then they had to name a new leader. Teitelbaum had no direct heir. Faiga could not be grande rebbe, because she was a woman. So the title passed to his nephew, Moses Teitelbaum, and that's where the troubles began.
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