New Square Arsonist Sentenced to 7 Years
Shaul Spitzer, a follower of the Skverer Rebbe, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for first-degree assault in the attack on Aron Rottenberg at 4:15 a.m. May 22 during an attempt to burn down the family’s home on Truman Avenue in New Square.
Spitzer was sentenced this morning in state Supreme Court in New City.
Rottenberg, 44, once a plumber, continues to recover from third-degree burns over 50 percent of his body, suffered when Spitzer set off an incediary device while grappling with Rottenberg. Spitzer suffered burns to his hands and arms.
Spitzer faced a sentence of five to 25 years. Before Spitzer pleaded guilty Feb. 8, state Supreme Court Justice William A. Kelly told the teenager that he would cap his prison term at 10 years.
Kelly came down from his original 15-year cap after Rottenberg suggested leniency and the Rockland prosecutors offered 10 years.
Spitzer’s lawyers optimistically hoped for five years, allowing Spitzer to get out earlier with good behavior. He was represented by former Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz and former prosecutor Deborah Wolikow Loewenberg of New City, as well as Paul Shectman of Manhattan.
Prosecutor Stephen Moore called for the 10-year sentence agreed to when Spitzer pleaded guilty, District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said.
In the autumn months of 2010 before the arson attack, groups of New Square followers of grand rebbe David Twersky had protested outside the homes of Rottenberg and several other families in the 57-year-old Skver Hasidic Jewish community.
Rottenberg and other dissident residents became targets when they bucked the stringent rabbinical rules and prayed outside the village’s synagogue on the Sabbath. They prayed with the patients at the Friedwald House rehabilitation center on New Hempstead Road.
Rottenberg became a symbol for some younger residents who desire independence from the rigid social rules set by Twersky. Others have thought Rottenberg was wrong to challenge Twersky, contending he chose to live in New Square and should abide by the rabbi’s rules.
Rottenberg and others had their car and house windows smashed. At least one family moved out of the village.
Rottenberg said his daughter was kicked out of school, his plumbing business boycotted and efforts to sell his house blocked by the religious theocracy that controls the village and answers to Twersky.
Rottenberg negotiated a peace with the community’s religious hierarchy. He had hoped to be left alone to sell his house and move out if he kept silent about the pressure and other issues within the community.
The peace lasted for several months until about week before the arson attack, during which time Rottenberg has said he received threatening telephone calls. He had installed surveillance cameras, and his son monitored the camera early one morning when a man tossed an incendiary device on the back porch. Rottenberg confronted the masked man, who turned out to be Spitzer.
Spitzer worked as a butler for the grand rebbe and lived in his home. At one point, Rottenberg and his family blamed Twersky for inciting Spitzer and the violence.
Spitzer admitted during his guilty plea that he acted because of Rottenberg’s defiance of the grand rebbe’s edict that all his followers pray in the community’s only synagogue on Truman Avenue, down the block from Rottenberg’s home.
Gribetz said Spitzer is remorseful and contrite.
“He knows there’s no excuse for what he did,” Gribetz said. “Without being overly dramatic, he cries and prays every day for Aron Rottenberg to recover.”
recovery
may we all learn how to behave in better ways
i am not one to judge
i cannot judge but this is abnormal. how can a jew hurt a fellow jew b/c they don’t agree w/ their behavior. i cant belive he did this.
Tzfati
Did this guy move from Tzfas to new squre.?
justice system
7 yrs for setting someone on fire and 27 for archaic cow laws? crazy
Mendy Rainsfield
NO COMMENT. THE TEENAGER apparently did a self-brainwashing over zealous act like Aaron’s 2 sons in the Torah, beyond the letter of the law. He surely will now languish in jail and hopefully come out of this with much teshuva under his belt.
CR
“7 yrs for setting someone on fire and 27 for archaic cow laws? crazy”
Plead guilty and show contrition and remorse (even if not completely genuine) and the courts will be lenient. Go for broke insisting on your innocence, even claiming to be akin to the F“R in Shpalerka, besmirch the courts and our entire society as ”entisemitten” and you can expect the presiding judge to throw the book at you, good and hard!
Has Spitzer ever gone to Rottenberg to beg forgiveness? It seems that is the very least he needs to do, and make it in front of a minyan!
mendy
a guy like this does not deserve to be wearing a yalmaka
New CH Bais Bin Osdaba Segal and Mendy R
To mendy R.
I hope you are perfect in Machshova Dibbur and Masse- and never have to account for your sins. You probably don’t even have to fast on Yom Kipper-
he should go free
hes young and had no clue what he was young and immature and was doing this by the orders of the elders
plus they paid off the victim with over 2 million dollars
No tahalucha?
I am just curious, is this hassidic community not having the concept of tahalucha?
amazed
i dont rlly get the whole story, but i do know that this is embarrassing to the jeiwsh congregation and i find it hard to believe a jew would do this. we are supposed to set a kidush hashem and this is surely doing so.
wondering
wheres his peyos???
To CR
While i hear what you are saying in response to number 4, and i might even agree somewhat, you very clearly have not the slightest idea what really happened in public as well as behind closed doors throughout the rubashkin case and before. watch what you say about others. people may get extremely hurt by your words.
Sefiras Haomer
The same story of the students of Rabbi Akiva. The same goes with all the fights of meshichistim and antis.
Andrea Schonberger
I realize that the attack on Mr. Rottenberg and trying to set fire to the Rottenberg’s family home was totally wrong but, and it may sound lame, I think the issue of why he felt compelled to commit these acts needs to be addressed. I wonder if there’s more to the story than the one given.
How long is a seven year sentence????
How many years will he actually serve? does the sentence get cut in half for good behavior?
to number 9
Are you kidding me?!?! He did something extremely wrong. Young and immature? Immature yes but hes not 5 years old. hes 17. He did something very bad and he should honestly get a longer prison sentence.
sechel
WHY only such a short time? He needs intense therapy while he is there, but its too short. He may be young, but he’s dangerous.
Mendy Rainsfield AGAIN i- sorry about th
TO NO 8 – I am Mendy Rainsfield… did I get the posuk in chumash wrong? I am very sorry. I didn’t mean to mention Aaron’s sons in the Torah. I guess it’s a different connotation there. I was showing that Jew was head over heels to his Rebbe HaRav Twersky, to the point of inhuman behaviour. When this kind of closeness at protecting the ideology of a Rebbe takes hold, then watch out. It’s almost like Muslims lehavdil doing their killings to please their you know what.
Milhouse
It’s called hiskashrus. The way he went about it was very wrong, but what motivated him is everything that chassidus is about. You people would probably have condemned Pinchos too.
“If a kohen did the avodah while tomei, the penalty is merely malkus; but his fellow kohanim would not bring him to beis din, but would drag him out and beat his brains out with their hands, and they are not to be condemned”. Rambam, Hil’ Bias Mikdosh 4:2. You people would surely have demanded the death penalty for them.
It’s about merida bemalchus. When your rebbe says something, his word is law. You do not question it, EVEN IF IT APPEARS TO BE AGAINST A CLEAR HALOCHO, let alone if it doesn’t. Our Rebbe made this very clear when he told the story of the time the Ari Zal told his talmidim to come with him and be mekabel Shabbos in Yerusholayim. When they said they had to ask their wives’ permission, the Ari Zal said not to bother, the trip was off, and had they come without question they would have brought Moshiach. The Rebbe pointed out that it’s a clear halocho that one may not leave town without ones wife’s permission. And yet, said the Rebbe, when ones rebbe says to go one must obey. This Rottenberg not only disobeyed his rebbe, but openly defied him, and for that he deserved what the community was doing to him. The Spitzer kid decided to escalate to violence, and that’s not the chassidisher way, but one can understand what motivated him.
Rabbi Yishmoel says that the fault of Nodov and Avihu was that they didn’t consult Moshe or Aharon, or even each other; they just acted on instinct. Pinchos consulted Moshe, and he is praised. They didn’t consult, so they were punished. This Spitzer kid also didn’t consult anyone, and that’s why this happened; a young man like him has to consult older chassidim, mashpi’im, even the Rebbe, before taking such drastic action, and they would have steered him away from this.
SHEEP
This young 17 year old kid who is not even legal to vote , go to the army , buy cigareetes, or fireworks . Obviously under the influence of his REBBE should not be serving any time at all that REBBE destroyed his life with his hateful teachings and interpretations of the TORAH . I feel bad for this young kid he doesn’t deserve this at all .
stupid
religion makes good ppl do bad things.
Our Rebbe Did Not Have Y-dei Eisav!
Milhaus,
Your comment above is beyond ridiculous. During the library trial in the Mems there was an incident in which a group of Baryonishe hooligans beat up Chana Gurarie to within inches of her life. The Rebbe announced that such people have “no place in Lubavitch” and that they “should go to Satmar or Ponovezh”. And this was not over someone who davened in a different shul; the targets of those assaults were directly nog’im b’khvodo ub’mamono shel Rabbeinu! By us, hiskashrus is no excuse for violence, none at all.
B’nedon didan; Spitzer is hoshav el kano as Sar Hamashkin and there has been no public rebuke or distancing by any members of that community, especially from Mister David Twersky! By any objective standard, Mister Twersky is a Rosho ben Rosho ben b’no shel Nimrod and Spitzer his attack dog.
Itchy
If we just try to focus on the good in people not the negative moshiach will come sooner Amen
Nadav ben Ahron
Milhouse – GARBAGE!
All Aron Rottenberg (nebach, that is how his name is spelled) deserved for not fitting in is a fair price for his house so he could go his own way like Lipa Schmeltzer (to whom the value of his old cottage in New Square hardly mattered) did.
While of course unzerer Rebbe would never have asked anyone to do anything of the nature of what Spitzer did, there are more than a few dictatorial shluchim who most certainly do ask people close to them to commit illegal and immoral, and unhalachic, acts, claiming it is all “for the Rebbe.”
Let this be a lesson for us to clean house as well and for anyone who is approached by one of these petty tyrants who thinks he is the meshaleach to respond with a heartfelt YESHAKEINI and to move on.
Mendel
Wow, Milhouse, you really explained what’s wrong with chassidus (at least your version of it). I couldn’t believe this sentence: “This Rottenberg not only disobeyed his rebbe, but openly defied him, and for that he deserved what the community was doing to him.” Wow! Once your Rebbe, always your Rebbe. And the phrase, “This Spitzer kid also didn’t consult anyone” also shows that either you have ruach hakodesh or else you are an insider in NS. C’mon, chances are that Spitzer did at least indirectly “follow instructions”.
Mendy Rainsfield.
Mendy R again: MILLHOUSE – your words are correct and were much needed to explain the rebbe / chosid relationship and thanks for straightening me out on Nadav and Avihu… very good. The other response re: Gurary rebbetzin being beat to a pulp and I have seen that terrible pix of her face bashed in totally… Where did this klipas noga from the rear come into play for the protection of seforim. I am interested: WHAT DID OUR REBBE SAY AFTER HE FOUND OUT ABOUT HIS RELATIVE BEING BEAT TO A PULP FROM THESE LUB. HOOLIGANS. Is it written somewhere in a sicha? Please I beg you to show me.
rebbes are responsible
the squarer rebbe is responsible fior this and he should sit not his house boy
Nobody
Milhouse,
Give up. These people just don’t have the feeling of a Chosid. They don’t relate to what you are saying.
BTW, to all those condemning his comments, he was very clear that the violence was unacceptable.
to Milhouse
I see only one problem with you argument. There is only one Rebbe, only one. The Rebbe who is a King of all Jewish people and not just one single synagogue. The Rebbe who would step to the Jewish barber store on Shabbos on the way home just to say good Shabbos for many years until the Jewish barber came to 770 on Shabbos. The Rebbe who said to come to every corner of the world and to every shul.
Everything else you said is 100% percent correct, but there is only one Rebbe.
Daloy Sociopath Cultists!
You Milhaus apologists are really something. Apparently, your warped version of “hiskashrus” goes up to the point of “will you kill for me?” and seem to suggest that if any Rebbe said to do so then all is OK. FWIW, this was exactly the level of “hiskashrus” to Charles Manson that many members of the “family” espoused. Eilu va’eilu shtus, hevel varik ve’ein hevdeil!
You are all truly being Megaleh Panim Latorah Shelo Kehalachah!
Terrible
Wow! Some of these comments actually make me afraid to live here. Some of you actually believe he deserved what happened to him because he deviated from the strictness of his commune! Do you hear yourselves??? Look at the evil inside yourselves, Mr.Rottenberg is a human being with a family!! A jewish one! It looks like he wanted to move but they wouldnt even let him do that, nobody would buy his house. Where should he go when he could not sell his house and he had no money because people boycotted his business! These “wonderful chassidish” jews basically destroyed him and his family for not being exactly like them!! This is what makes jews want to leave judiasm! How sad!!It’s heartbreaking. Will you do that to me if Im not tsnius enough for you even though I and my family are frum good people, just not perfect enough for you?!