Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 October 1952 — Page 13

THE NATIONAL JEWISH POST

Friday, October 24, 1952

You Need Shtraimel or Press Card to Get Near the Satmarer Rebbe

By MOSHE KAUFMAN Rational Jewish Post Correspondent WILLIAMSBURG, Brooklyn, U.S.A. (NJP)—Operation Hakafot! “See here, you can’t go in there!” "But I’m a Member of the Press!” "Well, produce your press card!” Not being in the habit of carrying a National Jewish Post press card on Simhat Tora, and so informing the policeman guarding the entrance to the shul of the Rabbi of Satmar, The Post correspondent was told: “Well, Press your way back into the crowd.” The above repartee took place at about 1:00 A. M., Sunday morning, October 12, when thousands of Jews gathered from all over Williamsburg and other adjacent parts of the United States to join in the Simhat Tora festivities with the venerated Satmarer.Rebbe. There is no day and no night here on Simhat Tora, as the Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel (Reb Yoielish) Teitelbaum, of Satu Mare, Roumania, who arrived in the U. S. after World War II, and his "court” of hassidim spend the time until shortly after midnight at their preliminary devotions, followed by the ritual ablutions in a nearby mikva. Just before the Rebbe was due to arrive at the shul and the above conversation took place, The Post reporter heard the police lieutenant barking instructions to the four policemen at one of the entrances to the shul, for the purpose of controlling the movements of a crowd of 12,000-odd milling the three roped-off streets near the shul, who were expected to become somewhat confused in seeking admission into a space whose capacity is about 150 people: "Now, here are the only people allowed entrance into the synagogue. If a man wants to come in, he’s got to need a shave pretty badly (in addition to those who normally wear beards, very Orthodox Jews, particularly hassidim, are not expected to have shaved during the entire week of Sukkot), or wear one of those round

Cossack fur hats (referring to a shtraimel).” The requisites for a woman were: "If she’s married, she’s got to have a white turban wrapped around her head. If she’s single, she must have her hair covered. That’s your orders.” Nowhere did the lieutenant say anything about press cards. But neither was the window at the alley behind the shul guarded. The informal singing and dancing of the "Rejoicing with the Tora” went on until shortly before 2:30 A. M., when a deafening hush filled the area. A reverent whisper surged through the crow'd. “The Rebbe, the Rebbe,” and at a signal from no one, everyone started pushing forward to see "Reb Yoielish” arrive with his entourage. Head down, wearing an ornate shtraimel, the Rabbi of Satmar proceeded into the shul through a way made clear for him by the expert elbowing of his guard of honor of several select hassidim, and four policemen. The Post reporter, meanwhile, had found himself a select vantage on a window sill of the shul, with only a hand grasping the top of the window to prevent violent discomfort to the bobbing heads below. Soon the preliminary prayers were said, the Tora Scrolls removed from the Ark and the "formal” festivities began. A m’nagen, a “caller” as it were, began to sing one of the famous "Satmarer Nigunim” (songs of the Satmar tradition), which was quickly picked up by the assemblage, and the dancing began. The dancing was perforce of a unique type. There being no room to move forward, backward or sideways •—the only place being up and down—small groups of two or three hassidim locked hands with their neighbors and simply danced up and down on both feet alternately, stamping time to the singing. The police, by this time, no longer were so diligently guarding the entrance to the shul, but were keeping

time to the music, and mumbling something about "better than Bebop.” Then the Rebbe began to negotiate his dance. Lovingly cuddling a ten-inch Tora Scroll to his right side, the 62-year-old Rabbi Teitelbaum, his tallit over his head, ecstatically began to spring forward from where he was enclosed by his hassidim. Taking gradually longer tnd more frequent springs, he suddenly leaped into a viouble-time trot. The solid mass of people miraculously opened up to clear the way for the Rebbe to march through. He continued to circle the room, taking sudden ecstatic leaps, as the devoutly and enthusiastically singing and dancing hassidim continued to clear a way for him. Meanwhile, many small groups for blocks around continued their own singing and dancing, and, in the Simhat Tora tradition, imbibed freely cf the limitless supply of soft and hard refreshments. Those who got a little drunk, sang and danced more enthusiastically. Those who got very drunk, began to feel very important and stood up to deliver Talmudic discourses to all who might not have been sober enough to care. At 6:00 A. M. the hakafot were over, and most of the crowd went home for several hours of sleep before returning for the morning services and the resumption of the festivities. The more devout and more hardy remained at the shul for several hours of study until the Rebbe started the morning service at 10:30 A. M. By 3:30 P. M. Sunday, the streets were crowded again, and traffic blocked by groups singing and dancing. All homes, as is traditional, held open house throughout the day, and groups moved from house to house for some more imbibement, more singing, more dancing, and more drunken learned discourses. With the evening prayers over, everybody retired to recuperate, and to resume, from. Genesis, the devout learning and practice of the "Law.”

NCRAC Naps Nclver Education Drive By J. PETER BRUNSWICK Rational Jewish Poet CorreRpomlent NEW YORK (NJP)—Public Relations representatives of the constituent agencies of the National Community Relations Advisory Council (NCRAC) met informally last week, in a first coordinated effort to plan a campaign of education and interpretation designed to familiarize the American Jewish public with the full implications of the controversial Evaluative Study Re-! port. The Report, more often re- ; ferred to as the Maelver Report, was approved by a plenum of; the NCRAC at its Atlantic City meeting last month and led two | of the major community relations agencies, the American Jewish Committee and the AntiDefamation League, to withdraw from the Council they had helped i to create a decade ago. Prior to approval of the Report i at Atlantic City, most of the in- : formation available to Jewish communities about the nature of the findings was seen as taking the form of heated, partisan propaganda, slanted to invoke approval or rejection of the Re-

port. This barrage of biased argument at times was in the nature of assaults on the personal and professional integrity of Professor Maclver. With the question of approval or disapproval no longer an issue, the member agencies of the NCRAC feel it their job to interpret the report to their constituencies and to convince them of the feasibility of the plan. "We’re planning, through our member agencies, to let the Jewish communities know what it was that we agreed upon in Atlantic City,” a spokesman for the NCRAC told The Post. “Our task is to demonstrate that the plan

which was adopted there is workable." In this task the NCRAC membership will face a team of seasoned experts in publicity and public relations. Both the ADL and the AJCommittee have maintained high-powered publicity departments for years, and will undoubtedly continue their special efforts to justify their recent move of dissension before the American Jewish public.

| Israel Playwright To Come to Hollywood TEL AVIV—Yigal Mosensohn, the writer and police public relations officer, will leave for Hollywood next month to advise on the movie production of his play, "The Man Without A Name.” Mosensohn, scion of one of the Jewish State’s earliest pioneering families and one of

A new journal is being published in Rome, Italy, “The Voice of the Jewish Community of Rome.”

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