You couldn’t make it up if you tried: the Hasidim of New York decided to engage in a little ‘heresy hunting’ in May 2011 with the ‘New York Daily News’ reporting at the time that:
‘A religious rift in a Rockland County Hasidic town turned violent Sunday when a man was severely burned.
Cops arrested a man from a rival synagogue, according to The Journal News.
Aron Rottenberg, 43, suffered third-degree burns to more than 50% of his body when Shaul Spitzer attacked him with a rag soaked in flammable fluid, police told the newspaper.
Police arrested Spitzer after the attack at 4 a.m. in New Square and charged him with first-degree attempted arson and first-degree assault.
Spitzer also suffered severe burns to his hands and arms, police told the newspaper.
Members of the Friedwald Center, where Rottenberg and his family worship, have split from the congregation of David Twersky, the Hasidic community’s grand rabbi and leader.’ (1)
I wonder what Martin Buber – the great jewish apologist for (and romanticizer of) Hasidim – would make of this?
He’d have probably had a heart attack trying to ‘explain’ this away!
References
(1) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/05/23/2011-05-23_badly_burned_in_hasidic_rift.html
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