Satmar Barclays Event will Celebrate 80th Anniversary of Rebbe's Rescue from the Nazis, Spearheading the Community's Rebirth in NY

Nearly 20,000 are expected to celebrate community's revival and marvelous growth of its yeshiva system - defying its detractors and naysayers and challenging environment - at Satmar's largest annual event to-date

BROOKLYN, N.Y., Dec. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On Sunday, December 22^nd, close to 20,000 members and followers of the Satmar community – the largest Hasidic community – will file into the Barclays Center to celebrate the 80^th anniversary of the community founder's rescue from the Nazis. The event, which is the community's largest annual-celebration to-date, will mark the community's marvelous growth, defying its detractors attacking Satmar and the Hasidic community and its yeshivas in general.

Headquartered in Williamsburg, Satmar boasts more than 100,000 members throughout New York and tens of thousands more worldwide. It is hard to fathom that this community started less than 80 years ago after the Hasidic community, based in Eastern Europe, was almost obliterated by the Nazis.

On the Jewish-calendar day of 21 Kislev, the community celebrates its miraculous rebirth. On that day (December 7, 1944), Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum OBM was on a train transport that was diverted from Auschwitz to Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Israel and established institutions for the new-arrivals mostly orphans, starting to building the community anew. Roughly two years later, he traveled to the US, where followers coalesced around him. Within several years, he started a small classroom with 6 children.

Fast forward 75 years, and in Williamsburg itself this school system educates 12,000+ children K-12, another 1,000 in its flagship seminary campus in Glendale, Queens, and tens of thousands more in Borough Park, Monsey, Kiryas Joel, Bloomingburg, Lakewood, NJ, Montreal, London and Manchester, UK, Antwerp, Belgium, and in a number of cities in Israel.

The late Rebbe is seen as the singular force to re-establish a Hasidic community keep to the unaltered traditions and garb of the shtetls in Eastern Europe. The Rebbe is also known for being an ardent anti-Zionist, lamenting the creation of the State of Israel as an abomination and tragic event for world Jewry.

Indeed, a highlight of Sunday's event will be the honoring of 150 leaders and administrators of educational institutions in Israel boycotting government funding. The community sends tens and millions of dollars annually to support these institutions – most of whom are non-Satmar, but adhere to the rebbe's anti-Zionist positions.

In recent years, the Hasidic community, especially its Yeshivas, came under a barrage of attacks by liberal media outlets driven by anti-Orthodox instigators. This also led to regulatory changes aiming to interfere with its yeshivas.

Yet, the Satmar community's rebirth – it's miraculous growth and establishment of vibrant neighborhoods, tens of thousands of healthy families, hundreds of institutions bankrolled by its own community members who started from scratch after the holocaust - stand testament to a way-of-life with unparalleled success.

The annual event also serves as a fundraiser for Satmar's largest education network, UTA of Williamsburg. This year, it aims to raise $50 million for three new buildings to add roughly 2,000 classroom seats, to accommodate its growth during the next couple of years. While many community families move upstate, due the skyrocketing housing costs in the city, resulting in the expansion on-steroids of upstate communities, it still grows by leaps and bounds in Williamsburg and its vicinities, almost doubling in size within 20 years.

"Sunday's event will reflect the community, its parent-body and their desires. They know what's best for their kids, and they will come show their support and appreciation for the yeshiva to whom they entrust their kids," said Rabbi David Niederman, President of the UJO of Williamsburg. "They reflect what's really good for our children, thousands of times more than a handful collection of rebellious individuals who are bitter for one reason or another, and are jealous of this success story."

SOURCE Satmar