— A spokesperson for the Satmar Hasidim reported today that Interior Minister Yosef Burg of Israel met privately last Thursday with Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, at the Rebbe’s home in Williamsburg, to discuss recent altercations started by Hasidic Jews protesting Saturday traffic on the Ramot Road in Jerusalem.
Satmar Hasidim in this country have twice staged demonstrations at the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan to protest the arrests of Hasidim in clashes in Jerusalem and what the spokesperson called a “brutal” tear gas attack by police on worshippers in a Satmar synagogue on March 7 in Jerusalem.
The Satmar spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Burg had asked Teitelbaum to receive him to discuss the incidents arising from the violent reactions by Hasidic Jews when cars appeared on the Ramot Road which passes through the Mea Shearim section of Jerusalem. The road carries traffic to a Jerusalem suburb.
The spokesperson said that among those present at the Burg-Teitelbaum meeting were Rabbi Hertz Frankel, a representative of the Williamsburg Orthodox community, and Berl Friedman, a member of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Boro Park, another section of Brooklyn.
BURG PLEDGES HE WILL INTERVENE
The spokesperson said that the issue of “police brutality” in Jerusalem was discussed in detail at the hour-long meeting and that Burg made a verbal commitment to the Satmar Rebbe that on his return to Jerusalem, he would “intervene personally” to resolve the issue of Sabbath traffic on the Ramot Road.
The spokesperson said one of the solutions proposed at the Burg-Teitelbaum meeting was construction of a second road which would by-pass the Mea Shearim section. The spokesperson said he was informed that Burg had left Tuesday on his return trip to Israel.
During the meeting, Burg telephoned Rabbi Yitzhok Weiss, leader of the Orthodox rabbinate of Jerusalem, urging that Weiss act to postpone further Hasidic demonstrations. The spokesperson told the JTA that Weiss had given Burg a commitment to prevent additional demonstrations, on a temporary basis. The spokesperson noted that there had been no demonstrations on the Sabbath weekends of March 14, March 21 and March 28.
The spokesperson was asked for comment on the statement by Shmuel Moyal, a spokesman for the Israel Consulate in New York, that Satmar Hasidim had deluged the Consulate for a week last month with telephone calls filled with obscenities and curses and another report that the Hasidim had denounced Israel, during their March 9 protest at the Consulate, as “Nazi.”
The spokesperson rejected the complaint by Moyal that the callers were Satmar Hasidim, He pointed out that anonymous calls provided no way to determine the identity of callers. He flatly denied the charge that Satmar demonstrations had used the term “Nazi” to describe Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
