Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

WATCH: Hasidic Day Campers Hurl Eggs in Mock Protest of ‘Heretical’ Israel

At day camps for young Satmar Hasidim, children hold mock protests — against the State of Israel.

In video clips, captured this summer on cellphones and published by the religious website Yeshiva World News, campers are seen chanting “Israeli government, shame on you!”

In another clip, children are seen pelting a car with eggs, made up to belong to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, chanting can be heard: “Bibi Netanyahu, shame on you!”

The clips were taken this summer at two separate Satmar day camps, one affiliated with the Williamsburg-based branch of the Satmar movement; the other affiliated with the Kiryas Joel-based branch. The two Satmar groups belong to rival brothers, who both lay claim to the Satmar line.

Satmar Hasidim are historically anti-Zionist. Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the dynasty’s founder who died in 1979, objected to the secular roots of the modern State of Israel and forbade his follower from having any “official” engagement with it.

Yeshiva World News, reporting the news, called the videos “shocking” and “disturbing.”

But Der Blatt, a Satmar-affiliated Yiddish newspaper, reprinted photos from the protests in a celebratory spread, describing the children’s mock protest as being held against the “Leader of the Heretical Regime.”

“The young pupils at the Satmar Summer Program Cheder in Williamsburg are ready, with eggs in hand, to pelt the car belonging to the ‘Leader of the Heretical Regime,’ which will soon drive down Penn Street between Kent Avenue and Whythe Avenue,” one caption reads.

“Thankfully a dozen eggs now cost less than a dollar,” another caption explained, “so they were able to throw so many eggs that the car’s black surface was no longer visible.”

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version