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| Joel Teitelbaum |
The Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, survived the inferno of Europe and built a spiritual empire in America. His searing theology was crystal clear: Zionism was not only a secular rebellion against Torah Judaism but also a cosmic violation of God’s will. In his magnum opus, Vayoel Moshe, he cited the Talmudic “Three Oaths” (Ketubot 111a): that Israel not ascend to the Land en masse, not rebel against the nations, and that the nations not oppress Israel excessively. In his view, Zionism shattered the divine order. Jewish sovereignty before the coming of Mashiach was illegitimate, even dangerous.
This stance gave birth to the Satmar position: opposition to the State of Israel not merely politically, but theologically. The State, in their view, brought divine wrath, endangering Jews everywhere. For decades, Satmar leaders thundered that Zionism itself stoked antisemitism by parading Jewish power in exile and angering the nations prematurely.
Yet today, the world has turned. Israel’s very existence is not the cause of antisemitism—it is the shield against it. The vicious antisemitism erupting in cities across the West—from New York to London, from Paris to college campuses in America—is not nuanced, not theological, not even pretending to differentiate between Satmar, secular, Zionist, or Torah Jew. It is raw Jew-hatred, unmasked. The mobs do not pause to ask: “Are you Satmar? Are you anti-Zionist? Are you pro-Palestinian?” They see a Jew, and that is enough.
The Satmar Rebbe’s fears were that Zionism would bring about pogroms; in reality, it is Israel alone that prevents a second Holocaust. When missiles rain down, when Hamas butchers innocents, it is the IDF that stands in the breach—not any of the Satmar doctrines. The irony is stark: the very state they opposed is the only guarantor that Jews can defend themselves.
But what has history shown us? That while Satmar huddled in Williamsburg and Kiryas Joel condemning the Zionists, it was the very Zionists—religious and secular—who built an army, who gathered the scattered, who gave Jews a homeland that the nations could not strip away. It was not Satmar theology that saved the remnant of European Jewry—it was the State of Israel. Without it, Jews would be scattered, powerless, and hunted like dogs.
And so the Satmar position, forged in the ashes of Auschwitz, now collides with the flames of twenty-first century hatred. Their insularity once insulated them from responsibility, but today, the line is clear: without a strong Israel, Jews everywhere are prey. The antisemite does not distinguish between a Satmar Hasid in Williamsburg and an IDF soldier in Gaza.
He hates both with equal venom.
The Satmar Rebbe lived in a world where the Jewish people were stateless, powerless, and traumatized. But history moved forward, and Heaven granted us sovereignty. To deny that gift, to delegitimize Jewish survival, is to side with our enemies at the very moment when antisemitism has returned in its ugliest, most violent form.
History, then, has delivered its verdict. The Satmar ideology may have been born out of trauma, but today it sounds like a dangerous echo—one that weakens Jewish unity in the face of an ancient, ever-mutating hatred.
Antisemitism is not caused by Zionism. It is the world’s oldest sickness, resurfacing now with renewed viciousness. And the answer is not withdrawal, not denial, but Jewish power, Jewish pride, and Jewish sovereignty.
REPUBLISHED:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-satmar-anti-zionist-manic-stance-todays-vicious-antisemitism/