Thousands of Satmar Hisidic Jews gathered in New York to celebrate the 68th anniversary of the rescue of their founder, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, from the clutches of the Nazis.
Teitelbaum's approach to Judaism was embraced by many Hungarian and Transylvanian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants.
The rabbi was rescued in 1944 from Nazi-controlled Transylvania as a result of a deal between a Hungarian Zionist official and Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust.
Teitelbaum lived in Jerusalmen for a few years after the war and then moved to the U.S. and settled in Williamsburg in Northern Brooklyn, where he amassed a huge following.
When he died in August of 1979, more than 100,000 Jews reportedly attended his funeral. In Hasidism the grand rabbi is 'revered as a kinglike link to God, holding vast sway over members' lives,' according to the New York Times.
Satmar Hisidic Jews are now one of the world's largest and fastest-growing sects of Orthodox Jews.
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