A group of rabbis who identify with a Satmar rebbe based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn have attacked the Second Rebbe of the anti-Israeli hasidic group for taking part in a fundraising drive to assist haredi French immigrants to Israel education in the haredi Atzmai (independent) school system. The attack said the system's core curriculum comprises "Zionism and heresy".
Backers of the Second Rebbe dismissed the attack, calling the critics "an extreme and negligible group".