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Sons start fight over who's boss



The expected angling for ultimate leadership of as many as 120,000 Satmar Hasidic Jews here and around the world has begun in earnest with the death of Satmar Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum.

Two rival Teitelbaum sons whose supporters have been waging a bitter power struggle in court for five years each met with their partisans before the first funeral for the late rebbe Monday night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and each was announced as the rightful successor, community members said yesterday.

Followers of Zalmen Teitelbaum, the brother who leads the main Satmar congregation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, boast that a will signed by the grand rebbe on March 4, 2002 - and read aloud before a rabbinical court that night - vindicates their rabbi by naming him the successor.

The will said that Zalmen "shall occupy my position and succeed me without any shortfall, for effective immediately I have granted him the position," according to a news release issued by his supporters' public relations firm.

But that will appears to be just more fodder for the protracted Satmar litigation, another exhibit in a growing pile of court filings. Supporters of Zalmen's older brother, Aron, chief rabbi of the dominant Satmar congregation in Kiryas Joel, question both the validity of the will and its ability to transfer power in the Satmar dynasty.

http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/04/26/news-camrebbefolo-04-26.html