OK. So there are these Jews, right, who don't like Israel, because they think only the Messiah has the authority to set up a Jewish state, not the secular heathens who are in charge over there now. They're Hassidic Jews of the Satmar persuasion.
Now Hassidic Jews in general are odd fish - they live their lives, for the most part, as did the founders of the Hassidic movement.
The founders lived in 19th century Poland.
So the Hassids who live in Israel, as well as those, like the Satmars, who live in New York, wear - year-round - plain white shirts and black slacks, long black coats, big black hats, they don't (again, a generalization) watch TV, and in other ways don't participate in modern life.
Except to tell other people how to live theirs.
The Satmars, as I mentioned, are anti-Zionist. They're Jews who hate Israel, as if Israel needs the added animosity. So they have had activists in Yemen for the last couple of decades trying to convince the few Jews left in that country not to emigrate to Israel, because, they tell the Yemeni Jews, "your daughters will end up prostitutes and your sons will be killed in the army."
They instead offer those who want a better life the chance to move to Monsey, New York, where, they promise, all your needs will be met. All well and good, except that it's a crock of shit.
I saw a documentary film today called
In Satmar Custody, made by an Israeli filmmaker named Nitzan Giladi with funding from Australian Channel 8, among other sources. The family profiled in the movie had their five children taken away from them by Child "Welfare" Services based on false testimony from Satmar community members. Another couple, briefly mentioned, went through the same nightmare. The Satmars get the extra children so they can milk the system for additional child support money, and, presumably, to gain more "converts" to their ass-backwards way of thinking.
They force the Yemeni Jews, who have a rich and long history of customs and traditions, to give up all they know, learn Yiddish (because the Satmars believe Hebrew should be reserved for prayer only, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was spoken by pre-Rabbinic Jews), and go along with shady fundraising schemes while not receiving enough to provide for their families. There are a couple of benefit groups working to help the Yemenites, but their efforts were not enough for the couple profiled in the movie - by the end of it (it was produced some time in 2003) the parents were in Israel, and still didn't have their four surviving children back (yes, the story also includes a little girl who dies needlessly because of teh Satmar actions).
I was so mad watching this thing, I could hardly think straight. I'll do some more research into it, but there's no reason for me not to trust the movie. The Satmars have been responsible for some pretty wacky shit in the past. One of their number served for years as an advisor to Yasser Arafat, basically supporting the terrorist killings of innocent Israelis for his religious purposes.
