Why Are Satmars Calling New Hasidic Town ‘Palm Tree’?

Image by Wikipedia

By Josh Nathan-Kazis November 10, 2017

Residents of the New York town of Monroe voted this week to carve out a portion of their town to create a brand new one with an unusual name: Palm Tree.

So why will a village 50 miles north of New York City bear the name of a tropical tree that is particularly ill-suited to the climate?

Palm Tree was created after a many-decade battle between longtime Monroe locals and the residents of the Satmar Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, which was located within Monroe. As the population of Kiryas Joel exploded, the village government has come into increasing conflict with the rest of Monroe over a wide range of issues.

Palm Tree will finally separate the Satmar Hasidim from the rest of Monroe, creating a new town that encompasses Kiryas Joel and some nearby acreage.

Kiryas Joel is named for Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Hasidic leader who founded the village. So why Palm Tree? “Teitelbaum,” which is also the last name of Grand Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, Joel’s nephew and successor in Kiryas Joel, translates from Yiddish as “Date Palm.”

The palm tree has previously served as a logo for Satmar groups in Williamsburg and in Kiryas Joel.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO