NEW SQUARE — Residents in this insular Hasidic Jewish village are hoping to forget last spring’s arson attack on a dissident community member and Tuesday’s guilty plea in the incident from an 18-year-old follower of the grand rebbe.
People are going about their normal routines, working, praying in the synagogue and studying in the yeshiva, several residents said.
Even in winter, the streets, lined with high-density housing and named after U.S. presidents, are filled with women pushing strollers while young men dash between prayers and school.
Not much has changed through the generations among the Skver Hasidim, a sect founded in Chernobyl and now led by Grand Rebbe David Twersky. Many feel no changes are necessary within the village off Route 45 nestled between Hillcrest and New City.
Shmarya Rosenberg, who monitors Hasidic culture on his Failed Messiah website, said Thursday that the 57-year-old community’s rigid traditions under Twersky will continue following the arson assault last May by Shaul Spitzer against Aron Rottenberg, a 44-year-old married plumber with children.
“I think they are definitely loyal to the rebbe,” Rosenberg said of the New Square Hasidim. “There will always be exceptions who will buck the normal behaviors. There are always people twisting on the fence. I don’t see any signs of them rejecting him or what New Square is.”
Spitzer, who lived in Twersky’s house and worked for him as a butler, admitted his guilty plea Tuesday to first-degree assault when he set himself and Rottenberg on fire during a confrontation. Spitzer admitted he acted because of Rottenberg’s defiance of the grand rebbe’s edict that all his followers pray in the community’s only synagogue on Truman Avenue. Rottenberg had received threatening calls a week before the attack and said people loyal to the grand rebbe marched on his house and vandalized his home and car months earlier.
Rottenberg suffered third-degree burns across 50 percent of his body. Spitzer suffered severe hand and arm burns.
Rosenberg opined the attack and Spitzer’s plea deal for 5 to 10 years in prison might have quelled dissidents who bucked the stringent rabbinical rules and didn’t have a problem with Rottenberg and others praying outside the village at the Friedwald House rehabilitation center on New Hempstead Road.
“I am sure some people learned a lesson,” Rosenberg said. “I don’t think as a whole, there is going to be significant change.”
Rottenberg became a symbol for some younger residents who desire independence from the rigid rules. Others felt he was wrong to challenge Twersky’s rules, contending he chose to live in New Square.
One observer said he doubted there had been a major insurrection within the community against Twersky and the religious leadership.
Yossi Gestetner, a blogger and public relations specialist who represents Orthodox Jewish groups, said whatever tensions there were in New Square have long “cooled down, but for the minds of a handful of hot-heads.
“Some people had hard feelings against the leadership before Rottenberg and will long after Rottenberg is gone,” Gestetner said. “There are not a lot of people running around with explosives in their heads.”
The community has a history of controversy among outsiders, including using its bloc vote to gain political influence, government money and social services. There also have been complaints from residents being forced out of the enclave.
The campaign by the rebbe’s supporters against Rottenberg included his daughter being kicked out of school. He was stymied trying to sell his house and his business was boycotted.
Rottenberg has blamed Twersky for inciting Spitzer. He and his family have said the rebbe “gave the clear signals to continue with this terror against any non-believers of him. As this attacker came directly from his own inner circle, the rabbi’s personal butler, who personally knows best of the rabbi’s will and desires firsthand.”
Twersky condemned violence, saying, “The use of force and violence to make a point or settle an argument violates Skver’s most fundamental principles.”
Gestetner said Spitzer might have thought he was doing the rebbe’s bidding but if there was such a conspiracy, the FBI would have acted with the Rockland District Attorney’s Office and the Ramapo police.
“I am saying that in the New Square culture people like Spitzer may get ideas that the rebbe wants something done,” Gestetner said. “He may have thought he was doing something for the rebbe. That’s fantasy.”
District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said no evidence was found that anyone but Spitzer was involved in the arson attack.
Rottenberg’s position hasn’t changed but he asked for leniency for Spitzer when he spoke Tuesday with state Supreme Court Justice William A. Kelly. Rottenberg also is expecting a settlement in the $2 million range from Twersky’s supporters to end a civil lawsuit.
The settlement will help Rottenberg pay bills related to his medical care.
The New Square rabbinical court agreed to issue an order permitting him to practice his religion, sell his New Square house and buy a new house, as well as allowing his children to attend school and marry.
In a statement, Rottenberg and his wife, Ruth, said, in part, “We hope that there will be peace in the community and no further animosity toward our family.”
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