On Monday, reports began spreading that the Satmar rabbi of Kiryas Joel (Aaron Teitelbaum) had endorsed Donald Trump for president.

The first to report it was Arutz Sheva, an Israeli right-wing tabloid. It was then picked up by New York-based YWN, or Yeshiva World News, a Haredi media outlet.

If it was true, it would be unusual. Rabbis have not generally picked presidential candidates in the past because the New York electoral votes are reliably Democrat, so why antagonize anyone by making an endorsement.  

But is it true?

Let’s analyze it.

There are no public recordings or videos of Teitelbaum endorsing Donald Trump, likewise no official letters signed by the rabbi. The likely source for this report is a digital sample ballot that began making the rounds earlier in the day, in which the Satmar community of Kiryas Joel, which Aaron Teitelbaum leads, appeared to direct community members to vote for Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, and to then vote Democrat nearly all the way down the ballot (except for one family court judge position).

The veracity of that pamphlet isn’t confirmed. The header claims to be from the “voting committee” of Kiryas Joel. Sample ballots and other campaign literature with the same header have circulated for years in the lead-up to elections in Kiryas Joel (as they do in other Haredi communities), but they are often deemed fake, and other legitimate-looking pamphlets soon follow making contradictory endorsements.

However, the X account affiliated with Aaron Teitelbaum’s Satmar faction, @HQSatmar, has posted that same pamphlet, which would lend it some legitimacy. The affiliation is loose – it is not clear whether the account is run by an official within the Aaronite faction or by a loyalist who may have his own ideas that aren’t always aligned with the leadership.

The same @HQSatmar X account also reposted another Haredi media outlet repeating the claim that Aaron Teitelbaum has endorsed Trump but that his brother, Zalman Leib, who runs the second Satmar faction (headquartered in Williamsburg Brooklyn), has yet to make an endorsement.

Yet, the same account also reposted a post from a Hasidic operative, Yoel Lefkowitz, who serves as the New York’s attorney general’s Jewish liaison, in which he torches Arutz Sheva for “fabricating” a quote from the rabbi. The Arutz Sheva story doesn’t technically provide a quote from the rabbi, but it suggests he personally endorsed Trump, “due to concerns that US Vice President Kamala Harris may pose a threat to the ‘Jewish people’ if she is elected president." Notice that only the words “Jewish people” are in quotes, which the Satmar rabbi (or any rabbi, for that matter) regularly says. Hence Arutz Sheva could just about plausibly claim they didn’t misquote him.

Shtetl called Teitelbaum’s haus bochur, or aide, to clarify the situation. The haus bochur confirmed that the "bloc vote" — functioning as an “elections committee” for the Aaronite Satmar faction — has indeed endorsed Trump, but that the rabbi himself has not.

Ok, but what DO we know about Satmar and the Satmar Rabbi’s views about Trump?

Well, we know that the vast majority, perhaps more than 90% of the community, will likely vote for Trump. That was the case in 2016 and 2020, and recent polls confirmed they plan to do the same this time around.

In general, Haredim are very socially conservative, and – even when Democrats control purse strings and all levels of government – local rabbis and advocates increasingly struggle to get the community to vote strategically for local Democrats.

Plus, the Haredi community struggles with the notion of a woman leader. As we saw when they erased Hillary Clinton from the Obama situation room at the time of the Osama bin Laden operation, Haredi papers, which do not publish pictures of any women, do not print photos of Kamala Harris and will struggle to properly report on events in the White House, should she win.

We also know that the Satmar rabbi recently attempted to meet with Donald Trump. And, though it was reported he only met Eric Trump in the end, he does not seem to have taken this rebuff personally.

We also know that Teitelbaum has mixed feelings about Trump, he has attacked the Trumpism in his community but has admiration for Trump himself. Teitelbaum has invoked Trump’s name a few times during his speeches, portraying him as a successful businessman. But in a speech as recently as last week in which he touted Trump as a successful businessman and millionaire as well as a “former president” (but not current candidate), Teitelbaum also claimed Trump lives an empty and meaningless life because he’s never experienced the joy resulting from eating a piece of Matzah or shaking the lulav, or donning Tefilin, or studying a page of the Talmud.

That speech, delivered to hundreds of young men for whom this may be their first election in which they can vote, did not include an endorsement for Trump.

So, though the Aaronite faction has indeed decided to vote Trump as per the sample ballot – a decision that Aaron Teitelbaum would have had to approve — it also seems that Aaron Teitelbaum himself has not yet issued a personal endorsement as some tabloid conservative Jewish news outlets are suggesting, nor may he ever.