The Specter of Satmar

A specter is haunting American Jewry—the specter of Satmar. The fiercely anti-Zionist ḥasidic sect, whose strongholds are Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel in upstate New York, now numbers something in the order of 70,000 globally, with fast-growing communities in England, Belgium, Israel, and Canada, among other countries. More than sheer numbers, however, Satmar exerts an influence, bordering on dominance, over the entire ḥasidic world outside Israel. Numerous smaller sects exist semi-officially under its jurisdiction, and even larger ones have to doff the cap. Such is the preeminence of Satmar over the ḥasidic world that outside observers sometimes find it hard to distinguish between Ḥasidim in general and Satmar in particular, genuinely confused about where the borders between the two lie.

Satmar are increasingly prominent in the wider media as well, be it Netflix specials such as Unorthodox or One of Us, or the furor in New York City tabloids over widespread COVID-19 rule breaking. Two recent books, A Fortress in Brooklyn by the historians Michael Casper and Nathaniel Deutsch, and American Shtetl by the historian David Myers and the legal observer Nomi Stolzenberg, focusing on Satmar’s twin citadels of Williamsburg and Kiryas Joel, respectively, aim to shed light on the secret of Satmar’s success. Both make a point of situating Satmar in a specifically American cultural, political, and social context, a welcome corrective to the Israel-centric nature of most ḥaredi studies.

Yet amid the long and tangled history of the how of Satmar success—including real-estate disputes, zoning laws, local politics, and First Amendment case law—one can easily lose sight of the why. In other words: what is it about Satmar that allowed it to chart its course to becoming the most powerful movement in ultra-Orthodoxy?