Arson In New Square... and the Silence That Followed.

This week, Shaul Spitzer, a New Square man,attempted to burn down own the house of another New Square man.  Spitzer arrived at the  home of Chaim Aron Rottenberg at around 4:00 on Sunday morning, armed with Molotov cocktail-like devices.  Fortunately, Rottenberg woke up before Spitzer could set fire to the house, killing Rottenberg and his family.  Instead, Rottenberg confronted Spitzer. At some point, the incendiary device was lit, with Rottenberg suffering third degree burns over 50% of his body.  Spitzer, who was also burned during the confrontation, has been arrested and charged with arson and attempted murder.

It turns out that this is not the first time that Rottenberg and his family have been targeted.  In the previous few months, there have been nighttime protests outside his home (complete with calls such as "Sheigetz get out of New Square"), car and home windows have been smashed and other acts of intimidation.

You may ask what it was that Rottenberg did to deserve all this.  Did his wife act in a non-tznius fashion?  Did he read Rabbi Slifkin's books?  Does he author a blog? 

The answers to the above questions are no.  Rottenberg's crime, for which he and his family were going to be murdered, was davening in the wrong minyan.  Apparently, in New Square, the Rebbe had instituted a rule years go that everyone must daven in the main shul in New Square.  Rottenberg, for whatever reason, chose instead to daven in a minyan in a nearby nursing home.  For this reason, his family has bee the subject of intimidation and harassment for months.

I believe that when something like this happens, a community is obligated to stop and re-evaluate itself.  While the actual act of arson may have been the work of a lone person*, the campaign of harassment was not and surely was endorsed by communal leaders.  When a community allows itself to physically harass and intimidate people over the choice of shul, then there is something severely wrong with the community.

The silence of the Skver Rebbe on this matter has been absolutely deafening.  To date, he has not condemned publicly condemned the attack on Rottenberg.  There are at least two possible reasons for this.  The first is that he is so far removed from his congregation that he does not know what is happening.  The second is that he knows what is happening and he approves.  Either way, the Skver Rebbe does not look good.  If he is unaware of a major event such as this, and unaware of the campaign of intimidation that has been going on for months, then his capabilities as a communal leader are virtually nonexistent.  If, on the hand, he knows and approves, then he's no better than a common thug.  Either way, the silence is showing that the Rebbe may well be unfit to lead the community.

When an event like this happens, a community must also stop and remind themselves of their  larger environment.  I'm not talking, in this case, about the chillul HaShem that has come out of this.  What I'm talking about is the attitude of the community concerning their perceived autonomy. 

There are those who believe that the Skver Rebbe has a right to dictate to people which shul to daven in.  Likewise, there are those who feel that it's perfectly all right to use intimidation,harassment and terror -- up to and including arson -- to enforce that rule.  Of course, there are laws against that sort of behavior, laws that, due to the isolation and homogeneity of the town, they feel they can ignore.  There are those who seem to feel that it' perfectly all right for New Square to be run as an absolute theocracy, and that those who don't fall in line should be forced out by whatever means possible.  They will state that New Square has the "right to set standards" for itself and that if Rottenberg or others "don't like it, they should just move."

 Fortunately, we live in a country where that's not the rule.  A community does NOT have the right to set religious standards and then ruthlessly pursue those that don't hold those standards.  It would serve the New Square community well to reflect upon the laws that grant them the freedom to be free from harassment in the first place.  You cannot assert the right to live where you want while practicing your religion and then turn around and deny the same to others.  There's a word for that sort of behavior -- hypocrisy.   And it would do the Skver Rebbe (or whomever is leading the community) well to remember that he, too, is subject to the laws of the United States and the State of New York – and that ordering a person to be harassed out of the community through violence is against those laws.

What is also astounding to me is that there are people who actually defend what Spitzer and the rest of the community have been doing.  They actually maintain that the leader of the community has the right to tell you where you can pray and that if you don’t follow his instructions to the letter, you forfeit your right to live there, you can (and should be) forced out of your home and publicly hounded until you leave.  They support the idea that a group of people should be allowed to set up a mini-theocracy where one person’s word is absolute law and that by living in the area, you surrender any and all rights (both halachic and legal) to which you are entitled. 

But the truth is that they don’t really mean it.  Oh yes, it’s good for them when they control the show, but I’d be willing to bet dollars-to-donuts that if a group of Chassidim moved into a hypothetical isolated Modern Orthodox community and were subject to this type of harassment that they would be registering their complaints as loudly as possible (and rightly so). 

And, in the end, what’s the cause of all this?  Because Rottenberg chose to daven in another shul.  I can’t help but wonder if this is exactly the sort of sinas chinam (baseless hatred) that is mentioned as the cause of the destruction of the second Bais HaMikdash. 

UPDATE:  The victim's name for tehillim is Chaim Aharon ben Chaya Sara.

The Wolf

* or not.  It is as of yet unknown if Spitzer was acting alone or under orders from higher authorities in the community.