An upstate judge yesterday awarded control of an Orange County cemetery to one faction of the divided Satmar Hasidim – a ruling that could affect the sect’s eight-year succession dispute.
Justice Stewart Rosenwasser ruled that the faction supporting Aaron Teitelbaum, the older son of ailing Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, should control the Kiryas Joel cemetery.
“What it means is that the people who are supporters of Aaron are now in control of the Satmar operation,” said their lawyer, Israel Goldberg.
But supporters of Teitelbaum’s younger son, Zalman, insisted the ruling affects only the cemetery, and not the group’s main synagogue in Brooklyn.
A feud between the groups has been simmering since 1998 when Rabbi Teitelbaum, the supreme leader of 40,000 Satmars around the world, named Zalman to head the synagogue.