Aroinies

The Aroinies are the Satmar faction aligned with Aaron, the current Satmar Rebbe’s eldest son. Their identity in the narrative is defined chiefly by the succession struggle dividing Satmar families: even children who share a school year are separated into camps according to which son their families support, making the factional dispute part of ordinary communal life.

Identity and Succession

The faction’s name refers to families who support Aaron in his competition with his younger brother Zalman Leib to inherit the dynasty when the current rabbi dies. The contest has grown prolonged and ugly. The narrator contrasts that struggle for authority with an ideal of rabbinic humility: in the past, as her grandfather describes it, men might decline the title, whereas contemporary rabbis are treated as celebrities and sought-after connections. The brothers’ rivalry therefore appears not simply as a family disagreement but as a challenge to the community’s own claims to holiness and brotherly love.

Camps and Communal Division

The factional split is reflected in two summer camps: one for children from families supporting Zalman Leib and another for those supporting Aaron. Golda belongs to the Aroinies camp. Although she and the narrator spend the school year together, they cannot see one another during the summer. Golda visits on the narrator’s birthday, arriving by a large, air-conditioned coach bus that stops at Hasidic colonies and camps in the Catskills. The girls walk away from the main cabins, where foot-stamping and hand-clapping can be heard, seeking privacy. Their meeting gives the political division a personal measure: the factions separate friends even as a birthday visit briefly brings them together.

Narrative Significance

The Aroinies illustrate how a leadership contest reaches beyond the people competing for succession. Family allegiance determines children’s camp affiliations and limits when friends can meet. Through the narrator’s questioning of the sons’ struggle for power, the factional divide also exposes a contrast between public religious authority and the humility and mutual care she believes that authority should represent.