Following the massive outpouring of support for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, two hasidic leaders formally invited by the president-elect Donald Trump to meet with him at the White House.

By World Israel News Staff

President-elect Donald Trump has formally invited two prominent hasidic leaders to the White House after Inauguration Day, Kikar Hashabbat reported Sunday.

Sources close to Rabbi Shaul Alter, the rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Kehilas Pnei Menachem hasidic movement, which split from the larger Gerrer (Gur) dynasty over a succession dispute, confirmed that he has received an invitation to visit the White House shortly after Trump’s January 20th inauguration.

The Israeli rabbi received his invitation via Yehuda Kaploun, a Jewish businessman from the Chabad movement living in Miami with close ties to Trump.

According to the report, Trump issued the invitation as a gesture of gratitude for the Israeli rabbi’s staunch support within the hasidic world for the former president in the 2024 election.

Trump also invited Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, one of the leaders of the Satmar hasidic dynasty in New York.

Rabbi Teitelbaum met with Eric Trump, the president’s son, at Trump Tower in Manhattan before the November election. The meeting was initiated after the Satmar Rebbe and other rabbis identified Jewish communities as key electoral regions for Trump’s campaign. Following discussions among leading rabbinic figures, it was decided to advocate for Trump’s intervention, hoping he would back legislation to protect the autonomy of ultra-Orthodox schools.

This is not the first time Trump has reached out to Rabbi Alter.

Earlier this year, Trump penned a letter to the rabbi offering his condolences following the passing of his mother.

Last month, Trump received 43.1% of the vote in New York State, compared to 55.6% for Kamala Harris, marking the best performance for a Republican presidential candidate since George H. W. Bush received 47.5% of the vote in New York in 1988.

Trump cut the Democratic margin of victory in the state in half, from roughly two million votes to one million, thanks in part to a major shift in the Jewish vote, which makes up close to 10% of the vote in a typical presidential election.

While Biden received 63% of the Jewish vote in New York in 2020 compared to 37% for Trump, Harris won just 55% of the Jewish vote in 2024, and Trump’s percentage rose to 45%, according to exit polling by Fox News.

In some predominantly Orthodox districts, including predominantly hasidic enclaves, Trump received well over 90% of the vote; in some precincts, he received as much as 99%.

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“He has a packed schedule in The Land of Israel until next Thursday, when he will return home,” said The Yeshiva World News.

By World Israel News Staff 

A leading rabbi of a hasidic sect, Satmar, which rejects the existence of the current State of Israel arrived in the Jewish State on Tuesday.

“Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Teitelbaum, better known as Rabbi Zalman Leib,” landed Tuesday morning in Israel, reported the Arutz 7 website.

He had flown “on a private plane from Heathrow airport in London,” according to the report.

He stopped in the British capital on Monday to visit Satmar institutions in Stamford Hill and Golders Green, on his way to the Land of Israel, said The Yeshiva World News, not referring to Israel as a modern state.

The Williamsburg community in Brooklyn, New York, where the rabbi is based, was “near gridlock” on Sunday afternoon as “the Satmar Rebbe prepared to leave on his trip,” it reported. 

Followers filled the streets. A motorcade transported him on the highway to New York’s JFK Airport, as seen on a video published by “All About Wedding.”

A massive gathering was scheduled to take place in Jerusalem later on Tuesday.

“He has a packed schedule in Eretz Yisroel [The Land of Israel] until next Thursday, when he will return home,” said The Yeshiva World News.

The Satmar movement was founded in 1905 by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, originating in Hungary.

“The Satmar Rebbe develops a comprehensive accusation, arguing that it was Zionism that caused the Holocaust, whether directly or indirectly: first by highlighting the Jewish issue as a political matter, then by creating an excuse for the nations not to take in Jews as refugees, since they had a place of their own,” according to Rabbi Tamir Granot, in a lecture published on the etzion.org.il website.

The State of Israel was established in 1948, a few years after the end of the Holocaust, but the movement to return Jews to their homeland was established beforehand.

In Israel, some politicians voiced displeasure over the rabbi’s arrival on Tuesday, saying that if Arab and pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists who are anti-Israel are barred from entering the Jewish State, the Satmar rabbi should also be prevented from visiting.

“Have we all gone mad? Closing roads in Jerusalem for the arrival of the anti-Zionist Satmar leader who objects to the existence of the State of Israel. I don’t understand how he is permitted to enter the state?” said Israel Beiteinu MK Yulia Malinovsky, as cited by Arutz 7.

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