The Big Dog in the Neighborhood

Rabbi Moshe David Niederman, CEO of UJO in Williamsburg

Lest anyone say that Satmar does not have a sense of humor, I present to you Rabbi Moshe David Niederman. He's a pretty funny guy. Rabbi Niederman is the Executive Director and President of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, Inc. (UJO), the central planning and social service agency for more than 200 organizations of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, which is mostly a Satmar enclave. I say mostly because there are non Satmar people that live there too as well as non Jews.

Satmar is well known to be quite insular. (See yesterday's post.) And it is thought that they are not very friendly to their non Jewish neighbors. But it isn’t true. They seemed to be quite friendly to a young black woman who lives in their neighborhood. How do I know? I saw it with my own eyes. There was an interaction between her and Rabbi Niederman that was recorded on camera and broadcast to millions of people last night.

Rabbi Neiderman came off as very affable and quite humorous himself.   All this on TV apparently filmed and broadcast with his permission. Which is quite ironic considering that very few if any Satmar Chasidim would have seen him. Most don’t own any TVs. I wonder what the Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg thought of his performance?

I guess you just don’t know about people. The video clip follows below.

Warning: The actual stand-up material that follows Rabbi Niederman may be offensive to some people.