Chaos Erupts at Burial for Powerful Satmar Hasidic Leader

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By Forward Staff May 23, 2016

Chaos erupted last week at the upstate New York graveside of Yitzhak Rosenberg after leaders decided to bury the powerful Hasidic businessman next to Grand Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum, which some in the ultra-Orthodox community denounced as a sacrilege.

Explosive video depicts scuffles that broke out at the Wednesday burial of Rosenberg, a controversial businessman who drowned on a Miami beach last week, News 12 television reported.

Some Hasids disagreed with the decision to bury Rosenberg so close to the revered spiritual leader in Kiryas Joel, the Hasidic enclave in upstate New York.

Rosenberg, a millionaire real estate developer, and another Hasidic businessman died Tuesday while on vacation.

He was a powerful figure in the Satmar community and was president of his congregation.

But some questioned whether he was acting according to the strict moral code of the fundamentalist community by bathing on a Florida beach.

The controversy was exacerbated by as yet unsubstantiated reports that at least one of the drowned men was found naked. It was unclear if fierce rip tides swept off the victim’s bathing suit, the TV station reported, quoting Miami authorities.

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