Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Satmar, a Hasidic sect in New York City.
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News Prosecutors Grill De Blasio Over Ties To Satmar Leader
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio met Friday with federal prosecutors investigating whether he gave special treatment to an influential Satmar Hasidic landlord in exchange for supporting his campaign, according to The New York Times. The landlord, Moishe Indig, is a top lay leader among the Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based followers of Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, the…
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News Her Journey From Hasidic Rabbi To (Happy) Transgender Woman
Abby Stein is almost certainly the only ordained Hasidic rabbi who is also a woman. Stein wasn’t female when ordained, of course. She was a young man, soon to be married to a woman also from the strict Satmar community in which they were both raised. While Stein – then named Yisroel and nicknamed Srully…
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News Is Fraud Arrest of Hasidic Fixer Sign of Probe Into Wider Scandal?
The Satmar political activist whom federal agents arrested Thursday on food stamp fraud charges had a side gig as a political fixer for rich Hasidim, the Forward has learned. Isaac Sofer, who managed government relations for a Satmar yeshiva system, used his political connections to help wealthy members of the Hasidic community, according to a…
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News Satmar Hasidic Activist Isaac Sofer Arrested for Food Stamp Fraud
The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested prominent Brooklyn Satmar community activist Isaac Sofer on Thursday morning on charges that he lied in order to obtain food stamps. Updated, 3:00 P.M. Sofer manages government relations for the Central United Talmudical Academy, the Williamsburg yeshiva system that serves followers of the politically connected Satmar Grand Rabbi Aron…
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News How the Hasids Won the Battle of Bloomingburg — and Everyone Else Lost
When Mrs. F. and her husband decided to move away from Kiryas Joel, the upstate New York shtetl where they grew up, they went to their rebbe to ask for advice. The couple couldn’t move just anywhere. Both are members of the Satmar Hasidic group, and like all ultra-Orthodox Jews, they had special requirements: a…
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News Why So Many Ultra-Orthodox Jews Will Vote for Hillary Clinton — Not Donald Trump
Why are some of the most observant Jews in America planning to vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday? Here’s a general rule of thumb: The more religious you are, the more likely it is you plan to vote for Donald Trump. Among white evangelicals, for instance, support for Trump increases with frequency of church attendance….
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Yiddish World The Making Of The First Female Hasidic Civic Court Judge
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In the final countdown before the election, Ruchie Freier was still uncertain whether she would win the race for Civil Court Judge. But win she did, and starting in January 2017, she’ll become the first Hasidic woman ever elected to this high position. Sipping hot tea with…
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News Hasids Busted for Plan to Murder Husband Who Wouldn’t Divorce Wife
Federal prosecutors announced the arrest Wednesday evening of two members of the Satmar Hasidic group accused of planning to kidnap and murder a man who had refused to grant his wife a religious divorce. Shimen Liebowitz, 25, and Aharon Goldberg, 55, planned to pay $55,000 to a private investigator to arrange the kidnapping, according to…
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