די וועבערמאן מעשה אן די מידיא'ס פילטער

[יאסעלע וואסער טרעגער]

גענומען פון איי וועלט.

My take on the Weberman Case

Let me start with this, my English is not perfect nor am I a writer, but what I write here is information that I myself witnessed and researched. And if one wants a true account of the events that unfolded in the last few years, than this writing should get you what you are looking for.
We all know the basics of the case and the surrounding fire storm that it caused in the Jewish world perticurly in the Hasidic sects in new York and around the world, but what many of us don’t know is what has taken place behind the closed doors in the judges chamber in the court house, and how the Hasidic life style is way different then the so called evil lifestyle that was portrayed in the media.
I will concentrate on the Satmar sect, although there are many other well regarded large Hasidic sects in New York, this case has evolved around the Satmar community and therefor my main focus will be to give you a clear picture of this particular sect.

The Satmar Sect.
The Satmar Sect was founded by rabbi Joel Teitelboum, Rabbi Teitlboum was renowned from a young age for his sharp tongue and analytical skill as well as his kind hearted soul who helped many follow Jews from a very young age. As a young man, he moved to Satmar, (A town in Romania) where he gathered a following. In 1911 he became rabbi of Orsova, and in 1925 he was elected chief rabbi of Krole near Satmar, In 1934 he was invited to become the rabbi of Satmar, and took up that honorable position with great dedication and hard work on behalf of all the towns’ people.

My take on the Weberman Case.
Let me start with this, my English is not perfect nor am I a writer, but what I write here is information that I myself witnessed and researched. And if one wants a true account of the events that unfolded in the last few years, than this writing should get you what you are looking for.
We all know the basics of the case and the surrounding fire storm that it caused in the Jewish world perticurly in the Hasidic sects in new York and around the world, but what many of us don’t know is what has taken place behind the closed doors in the judges chamber in the court house, and how the Hasidic life style is way different then the so called evil lifestyle that was portrayed in the media.
I will concentrate on the Satmar sect, although there are many other well regarded large Hasidic sects in New York, this case has evolved around the Satmar community and therefor my main focus will be to give you a clear picture of this particular sect.

The Satmar Sect.
The Satmar Sect was founded by rabbi Joel Teitelboum, Rabbi Teitlboum was renowned from a young age for his sharp tongue and analytical skill as well as his kind hearted soul who helped many follow Jews from a very young age. As a young man, he moved to Satmar, (A town in Romania) where he gathered a following. In 1911 he became rabbi of Orsova, and in 1925 he was elected chief rabbi of Krole near Satmar, In 1934 he was invited to become the rabbi of Satmar, and took up that honorable position with great dedication and hard work on behalf of all the towns’ people.
Satmar Founder
In 1944 the Nazis came in to the town of satmar and gathered all the Jews from the whole town in the towns square, where the women and small children where thrown on to pickup trucks and taken to the woods outside the town and where shot one by one.
Noting Short of a miracle Rescued the rabbi from sharing the same faith as his towns people when During the Holocaust, Teitelbaum and his wife were rescued in 1944 in Nazi-controlled Transylvania as a result of a deal between a Hungarian Zionist official, Rudolph Kastner, and a deputy of Adolf Eichmann. Although the Kastner train, on which they were passengers, was first re-routed by the Germans to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the Teitelbaums reached Switzerland.
Any other person would give up hope after losing all he had, his family, his whole congregation, all his beloved students that studied in his yesiva, but not this holy man, after the war he took great interest in the orphaned children that where left alone in this world without a single relative, here the rabbi came in and was a father to those children and his wife was like a mother in every aspect of their life.
They briefly lived in Jerusalem after the war, but at the request of some of his followers who had emigrated to the United States, the rabbi settled instead in 1947 in Williamsburg located in northern Brooklyn in New York City. There he attracted many new followers and established a large community in the densely Orthodox neighborhood.
Although Satmar was always strongly opinionated when it came to religious issues and customs like how women dress themselves or their opposition to the state of Israel, what the rabbi always told his followers (Hasidim) is that when it comes to helping a follow human being you don’t look at their believes or how they are dressed or what the color of their skin is, the obligation of a Jew is to help “anyone” in need.
In that spirit and by the lessons that the rabbi gave Many organization where established and founded by satmar that now days stand ready 24 hours a day to help each and every human being in every situation, just to list a few examples.
Hatzolah
Where members are assigned ad-hoc to respond to the emergency. The dispatcher requests any units for a particular emergency location. Members who think they will have best response times respond via handheld radios, and the dispatcher confirms the appropriate members. Two members will typically respond directly to the call in their private vehicles. A third member retrieves an ambulance from a base location
In some areas there may be periods where coverage is not strong enough, for example on a summer weekend. When this happens, coordinators may assign an on-call rotation. The rotation may still respond from their houses, or they may stay at the garage through their shift. In such periods, Hatzoloh functions closer to a typical EMS crew setup, though the dispatchers may still seek non-on-call members to respond, and there will still often be a non-ambulance responder as first dispatched, even if that responder starts from the base.
Hatzalah members were among the first responders to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 alongside other rescue workers, Hatzalah volunteers rescued, treated, and transported countless victims of the terrorist attack in the process they earned great respect from their peers in the emergency service community.
An Hatzalah Ambulance on September 11 2011

Chaverim
Is an umbrella name for Orthodox Jewish volunteer organizations on the East Coast of the United States which provide road assistance and other non-medical emergency help at home or on the road. All services are free. The organizations are supported by local donations
This following list is just a part of what Chaverim does
Assist people locked out of their home or vehicle.
Repair flat tires and pump low tires.
Boost car batteries.
Assist cars stuck in snow, mud, etc.
Give rides to motorists whose cars are disabled.
Transport families to weddings during snowstorms.
Give directions for those in unfamiliar areas.
Obtain gas if someone's gas tank runs dry.
Assist with burst pipes.
Assist with loss of essential services such as gas, electric, water, or telephone.
And all of this is 24 hours a day and free of any charge (Try giving a tip for a member after being stranded 5 hours on a remote road in the snow and after him working 3 hours to get you going again, it will never happen a member will never ever take a penny for his services)
A Chaverim member helping out someone with a flat tire
Shomrim
Are licensed organizations of volunteer Jewish civilian patrols which have been set up in neighborhoods in the United States and England to combat burglary, vandalism, mugging, assault, domestic violence, nuisance crimes, and anti-Semitic attacks they also help locate missing people.
Shomrim groups are licensed and trained by local police departments and sometimes serve as a liaison between the religious public and police.
Shomrim volunteers are unarmed and do not have the authority to make arrests. They are effective in tracking and detaining suspects until police arrive.
In Brooklyn Baltimore and Stamford Hill many residents call Shomrim instead of the police due to the much quicker response time.
Shomrim Members handing out flyers looking for a missing person
Bikur Cholim
Also known as the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, is a nonprofit organization in New York, providing life-saving services and social support programs for children, adults, and families suffering from serious and life-threatening illness. Its programs and services include physician referrals, help with treatment costs, and free loan of medical equipment, visitation, meals, and Blood & Bone Marrow program.
The Bikur Cholim bus
And the list goes on and on with countless org. that help people in every walk of their life, just one more example, in the Brooklyn community there is about 5 other different fundraisers each and every night of the year (besides Shoboss and Yon Tov) to raise money for families in need.
The community
Basically this community is a very quiet neighborhood with The Lowest crime rate in Brooklyn, the streets are full of busy moms rushing home after a day of work to greed their children who return after a full day in school or just pushing a stroller surrounded by a few little sweet faces nicely holding on to the sides of the stroller going for a walk up and down the block, when in the sides Hard working man dressed in a white shirt and black suit and hat rush to the morning or evening prayers in the synagogue of their choice.
Women, the role of a satmar mom in the family
Jewish women have a special role, since divine providence has bestowed upon them special capacities that must be utilized to this end. The woman is the foundation of the Jewish home, she is responsible for the inner light and Jewish warmth of the home, sheltering the home from alien winds that blow from outside.

Moreover, women are endowed with a greater and more expressive measure of feeling and sincerity, making them especially suited to arouse and stimulate the inborn, Jewish feelings of love of God, the Torah and the Jewish people.
The modesty rules that apply to how Hasidic women dress that was bashed in the media recently, is created for one reason and one reason only out of respect for a woman it is to keep man from harming women, it is to keep our wives and our dear children safe in a world that safety is so uncertain.
Hasidic men and women, as customary usually meet through matchmakers but marriages involve the mutual consent of the couple and of the parents. Expectations exist that a bride and groom should be about the same age. Marriage age ranges from 17-25, with 18-21 considered the norm. No custom encourages an older man marrying a young woman.
Hasidic Jews typically produce large families; the average Hasidic family in the United States has 8 children. This custom is followed out of a desire to fulfill the Biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply.
The Satmar School System
According to Hasidic customs the schools in Satmar are divided with one boys school and one girl’s school, and even the teachers are divided man teach the boys and women teach the girls (the need for the divided teachers can be well seen now days with all stories in the news about teacher’s raping or befriending girls in an intimate way)
Like many other private schools all over the world, the Satmar School has a dress code that every student has to follow in order to attend the Satmar School.
A School uniform of a secular private school in taxes (note that the shirts are long sleeved and the skirts go till under the knee)
As every person with an open mind understands if a school has a dress code it has to be followed 100% and if a student chooses not to follow it, the school has every right to expel that student with no strings attached.
However the satmar Rabbi instructed his followers that expelling a student of any Satmar school (or ysivah) should never take place unless every other venue has been tried to get the student to cooperate.
The satmar girls school dress code consists of a shirt (top) that has to fully cover the upper body till the upper neck and have long sleeves, and a skirt that reaches no lower that under the knee and brown stockings (Palm tights to be précised).
No one in the Brooklyn community is forced to dress in any way, but its self-understood that in order to have your child enrolled in the satmar school she will have to follow the school dress code 100%, and if you or your child does not like the rules, there are plenty other great high level jewish Hasidic schools in the area that have other dress codes that are not as strict as satmar’s and you can send your child to whatever school you wish to send them to.
Now just for a brief moment lets jump to where the Weberman Case originated from, I just want to make it crystal clear that my goal here is not to bash the “so called” victim in the case, she did nothing wrong to me personal, I’m writing this article from the comfort of my home not from a damp dark jail cell, and I have no personal relationship with Mr. Weberman or his family, so no hard feelings here and I have no agenda to bash this troubled young woman here, I will only state the facts that are relevant to the story and no more than that.
Ricky Krouss (or Rifky as she was called by her peers) was a teen that came from a family with a “so called history” in the Hasidic community, Her grandfather (her mother’s father) was a prominent known highly regarded Hasidic publisher of a weekly publication called “DER YIDISHER LICHT” a highly regarded publication that centered their stories on Hasidic Rabbi’s and torah teachings, but to his dismay his daughters did not follow in his way of life, they have modernized and completely left the Hasidic community, however Ricky’s mother chose to stay in the community (although with hard feelings) and made a nice living of running a makeup salon for Hasidic women, her dad ran (and still runs to this day) a phone book that contained the names, address, and phone numbers of the Hasidic community all over greater New York, but the profit of the business came mainly from business that advertised (most of the business owners are satmar) in the phone book.
Although Hasidic the krouss family was not part of the satmar sect, but when it came to send their daughters to school Mr. Krouss wanted the best jewish education that he can possibly give for his children so he chose to send them to Satmar, Satmar did was not overly excited about the idea of excepting the Krouss Children for a number of reasons the main reasons are (1) because they had a hard time making place for their own, (Satmar Kids) as the schools where overcrowded with thousands of children, (2) Because Mss. Krouss was never sure that her staying Hasidic was the right choice and was always unhappy, and naturally the unhappiness with the Hasidic lifestyle transferred over to her kids, and which school is looking to accept students that are unhappy with what the school teaches even before they lay foot on the school grounds.
However Mr. Krouss kept of putting pressure on the school board that he wants his daughter’s to go to satmar and to satmar only till it reached a point that satmar had no choice and reluctantly said yes and accepted the krouss girls.

The first Bunch of the Krouss girls made through school Ok not causing and massive trouble to the school (although one of the girls other than Ricky where sent to Weberman for counseling and to this day she has no complaint against him) however little blond sweet faced Ricky was something totally different she was an unhappy child, from day one she caused trouble to her teachers and principals and no matter what the school tried doing she refused to cooperate, however a child is a child and the school kept on trying and trying to work with her until her behavior reached a point that parents of her classmates started complaining to the school about the bad influence Ricky had on their children, Ricky started to read all kinds of secular unrated magazines and and then came in school repeating what she was reading at home, but what the school really couldn’t get her to do is to comply with the school’s dress code, she came in school dressed with short skirts and short sleeves and ignored the pleads of the school board to come dressed as every other girl in the school.
(on a side note every other school would expel a student that does not dress according to the rules, but not satmar they still tried to work with her and her parents to resolve this matter)
At age 12 came the breaking point, without her parents knowing, she started to befriend a troubled boy of 19 with a long history of drug abuse and trouble, against the Hasidic rules she started hanging out with him (remember she was only 12 years old and he was 19) and having an intimate relationship with him all under the radar and without her parents knowledge, but the school did find out and yet with all this information the school had, and the whole history of trouble, the school did not wish to expel her they just informed her parents that she would have to seek guidance from a Hasidic counselor “Of their choice” in order to stay in school.
To be continued