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RABBI ZALMEN TEITELBAUM NAMED TO SUCCEED HIS LATE FATHER AS SATMAR GRAND RABBI

RABBINICAL COURT, CONGREGATION LEADERS MET BEFORE FUNERAL TO CARRY OUT DIRECTIONS LEFT BY THE LATE SATMAR GRAND RABBI MOSES TEITELBAUM, OBM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                            APRIL 25, 2006

Rabbinical authorities of the worldwide Satmar Chasidic community today announced that the Beth Din, or rabbinical court, has named Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum to succeed his late father as Satmar Grand Rabbi.

The Beth Din or Rabbinical Court of Satmar, along with leaders of Brooklyn's Congregation Yetev Lev d'Satmar, the central synagogue of the worldwide Satmar Chasidim, met along with community elders in the congregation office prior to Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum's funeral Monday evening. There was a reading of a March 4, 2002, will left by Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, OBM (Of Blessed Memory) in which the late Grand Rabbi said of Zalmen, ''he shall occupy my position and succeed me without any shortfall, for effective immediately I have granted him the position.''

The late Grand Rabbi, who died Monday at the age of 91, directed in his will that ''not one of my descendants or among the persons within the community shall challenge or commit any act to diminish the powers of the above-mentioned appointment.''

The Rabbinical Court met Monday evening and cited the late Grand Rabbi's will, as well as a speech he made to the congregation on October 31, 1999, appointing Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum ''as his successor in our holy congregation, Congregation Yetev Lev d'Satmar.''

The decision grants Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum authority over the Rabbinical Court and Mara D'asre, or authority of the congregation.

''In the hands of his son mentioned above is the power and control on all matters of our holy Congregation without any exception to the rule, and he shall occupy his position so that the Almighty's congregation shall not be as a flock which has no shepherd,'' the Rabbinical Court's ruling declared.

Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum was to receive the ''kunses,'' as the Rabbinical Court's finding is known, at his late father's home at 550 Bedford Avenue, where he is observing the period of shiva, or mourning.

Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum's ascension to the role played by his father provides spiritual and administrative continuity to the world's largest Chasidic community, which was reborn from the ashes of the Holocaust after the arrival in America 60 years ago by Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, OBM. After the death of Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum assumed the role of Grand Rabbi in 1979 and led the community from central Yetev Lev d'Satmar congregation in Brooklyn. The late Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum presided over dramatic growth in Brooklyn and in Satmar communities in Israel, Canada, Europe and in upstate New York at Kiryas Joel and Monsey.

In 1999, the late Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum summoned his son Zalmen back from his post as Chief Satmar Rabbi in Jerusalem to become Chief Rabbi at the late Grand Rabbi's headquarters synagogue. Another of the late Grand Rabbi's sons, Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum of Kiryas Joel, reported his father's decision to his own upstate congregation in a speech in 1999.

Leaders of the Satmar community expressed the fervent hope that with the naming of Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum as Grand Rabbi, divisions which have afflicted this community in recent years will now heal.