Paper I Wrote On Chabad In AA Class I Was Forced To Take In 2008

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Lubavitcher Jewish White Culture

Whites are a very diverse race. Native to Europe, North Africa and half of Asia, they make up over half of the world’s population. Naturally there is a great variation within the white race. The Caucasian Race can be divided into Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. Israel, the native land of the Jewish People is located on the Western coast of Asia along the Mediterranean Sea making Jews a Mediterranean Caucasian people. But within the Jews themselves, there is a great variation making them a diverse Semitic white ethnic group. The Lubavitcher Hasidic Movement to an example of the diversity of the Jews. 

White Jewish culture is different from white Anglo-Saxon culture just like white Irish and Italian cultures are different from themselves and from white Anglo-Saxon culture. Using the example of Jews shows the variation within white culture since even within Jewish culture there is great diversity. All cultures have sub-groups within them and Jews are a great example of this. American Jewry consists of Orthodox Jews and the Non-Orthodox movements, the largest of which are the Conservative Movement and the Reform Movement. The Reform Movement was founded in Germany in the 1800s because it wanted Jews to stay Jewish but also assimilate into German society. The Conservative Movement was founded in the United States in the early 1900s in an attempt to bridge the gaps between Reform and Orthodox. They felt they could become more American but at the same time cling to their traditional religious roots. Nowadays, most Conservative Jews are indistinguishable from the Reform Jews, while the more observant Conservative Jews come back to Orthodox Judaism.

Orthodox Judaism is the most diverse Jewish movement. It is the continuation of the unbroken line of traditional Judaism stretching back to the Revelation on Mount Sinai. Being that it is the original Judaism, it too divides into many sects and sub-sects since the idea of an Orthodox Movement is a fairly new construct in response to the Non-Orthodox movements. Since it preexisted the other movements, it already had its own history of ideological streams within Orthodoxy. Orthodox Judaism can be divided between Modern Orthodox and Haredi. Modern Orthodox Judaism was founded in Germany in response to the Reform Movement. It fought to safeguard Judaism from what it saw as the heretical Reform Movement while at the same time being a part of the modern world.  This was never an issue in Eastern Europe where the Jews were still in ghettos into the late 1800s. Eastern European Jews were much more traditional and it was there that Haredi Judaism, referred to by some as Ultra-Orthodoxy, was born.

Haredi Judaism can be further broken up into Hasidic and Mitnagdish. Hasidic comes from the Hebrew word chesed, which means kindness. Mitnagdish comes from the Hebrew word for opponent since the Mitnagdim were opposed to Hasidism. The Hasidic Movement started in Eastern Europe and spread all over the World as Hasidic Jews migrated out of Europe. The founder of Hasidism was Rabbi Yisrael Ben Eliezer, known as the Ba’al Shem Tov (The Master of the Good Name). He lived from 1698 until 1760 and was from Podolia/Vollynia, Ukraine. There is a story that says he said it was time to bring the Messiah but Satan stopped G-d from sending the Messiah in the middle of a cosmic process. There are many stories involving the Ba’al Shem Tov to give parables to his teachings. The Chabad-Lubavitch Movement of Hasidism published a book about him in the 1800s but it is based on Hasidic tradition and not historical records. Hasidism might have started as a revolt by the lower classes to give them a new way to practice Judaism.   The Ba’al Shem Tov is mentioned in Polish tax records as being exempt from paying taxes and is called doctor because he was a spiritual healer “on the basis of his ability to work miracles and perform wonders.”   That is the only historical record that mentions him.

Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, known as the Maggid of Mezeritch, was the heir of the Ba’al Shem Tov. He built a movement. He started the decentralization of Hasidism and sent people all over Europe to establish Courts of the Tzadik. A tzadik was the leader of a Hasidic dynasty and today is called a Rebbe. Hasidic dynasties are hereditary. When there is no male heir, the son in law of the Rebbe becomes the new Rebbe. One such Hasidic dynasty is Chabad-Lubavitch. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi was the first Lubavitcher Rebbe. Known today as the Alter Rebbe, he was a student of Rabbi Dov Ber and the founder of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty.   

Chabad is an acronym for Chochmah, Binah, and Da’at (Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge), which are the first three “degrees of Divine emanation in the Kabbalistic system.”   This reflected Chabad’s belief in traditional Jewish scholarship as well as Jewish mysticism. Other Hasidic movements differed from Chabad in that they emphasized other Divine emanations. 

Chabad came to the New World in the wave of immigration from Eastern Europe to the United States in the early 1900s. “The leader who brought the movement to the United States, Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson, also known as the Freirdicker (“Former”) Rebbe, has become renowned throughout Russia for his perseverance in Hasidism despite persecution and opposition.”   Yosef Yitzhak was severely persecuted by the government and even sentenced to death but was released within three weeks. After increasing religious persecution in Russia, he was able to migrate to Warsaw, Poland “and eventually to the United States, arriving in New York on March 19, 1940.”   He was assisted in his immigration to the United States by the Chabad community that was already established there by individual Chabad members. His supporters obtained “visas for the Rebbe and his staff, thereby enabling Yosef Yitzhak to enter the country in the first place”.   

The organizational structures in place in the United States were Agudat Hasidim Anshei Chabad (ACHACH, the Union of Chabad Hasidim, People of Chabad) and Agudat Hasidei Chabad (AGUCH, the Union of Chabad Hasidim).   Soon after arriving in the United States, “Yosef Yitzhak set up the new Chabad world headquarters and synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights”,   a Brooklyn, New York neighborhood which was at the time comfortable and middle class.   The headquarters known simply as 770 served as both his residence, as the site of administrative offices, and as a yeshiva (religious school). 770 became a site of pilgrimage for Chabad Hasidim all across the United States who would come to be with the Rebbe, especially on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.   

After the death of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, in 1950, his son-in-law “Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson reluctantly ascended to the leadership of the Lubavitch movement”   and became the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe. One of the things the Rebbe taught was that G-d should have a place to dwell in this world (Dirah Betachtonim). Rabbi Faitel Levin writes that “G-d desired to have a Dirah Betachtonim, that is a dwelling place in the lower realms. It is in particular the thorough processing of this Midrashic statement at the hands of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, extracting every iota of its meaning, that has resulted in the ideas that represent the theological system we shall henceforth refer to as Dirah Betachtonim.”   It is was  this theology that led the Rebbe to send emissaries everywhere to bring the light of the Torah into this world to unaffiliated Jews everywhere. Under his leadership, “Lubavitch institutions and activities took on new dimensions. The outreaching philosophy of Chabad-Lubavitch was translated into ever greater action, as Lubavitch centers and Chabad Houses were opened in dozens of cities and university campuses around the world.”   

The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch by Sue Fishkoff is a good source on Chabad’s outreach work among the Jewish community. The Rebbe sent Chabad emissaries to many places around the world to reach out to non-religious Jews to bring them closer to Judaism. Newly married rabbis together with their wives were sent out to areas where there were few Orthodox Jews to bring non-religious Jews back to Judaism. They have settled in all parts of the United States. In many rural and outlying areas, the only Orthodox Jewish community one will find is Chabad, fanning the flames of Judaism in the farthest reaches of the world. In cities such as New York, where there are many Jews, they stand on street corners asking if people are Jewish, in order to reach out to unaffiliated Jews and get them to do religious commandments of Judaism. One such campaign is the tefillin (prayer phylactery) campaign. In the early years they would stand on “street corners with tefillin, or drove around in ‘mitzvah tanks,’ converted vans or mobile homes that they filled with Jewish and Hasidic materials to hand out to interested passersby.”   Today they have the same routes and visit the same people every week. But on Jewish holidays, “huge mitzvah tank campaign are organized in major cities. On Chanukah one recent year, nearly a hundred outfitted cars and vans, with giant menorahs fastened to their roofs, paraded for miles through Brooklyn and across Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan.”   These are just a few example of Chabad’s important outreach work. Through bringing Jews closer to Judaism, they work to stop assimilation, which is threatening the survival of American Jewry. Jews have their own white culture and Chabad and other Orthodox Jews feel that it is forbidden for Jews to become a part of the Gentile white culture.

When Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, died in 1994, he was left without a successor and the movement was split between those who believed he was the Messiah and the mainstream official Chabad line is that he was not the Messiah. The stance of the former group of Chabad Hasidim leads other Jews to criticize Chabad causing the latter group to distance themselves from the former.   Those who claim he was the Messiah say that there are three steps towards Redemption. The three steps are that the Messiah being present with no one recognizing his Messiahship, the Messiah hiding himself, and the Messiah returning with everyone recognizing him ushering in the Final Redemption. They say that his death ushered in the second of these three steps.

Identifying Chabad, by The Center for Torah Demographics provides a critical look of Chabad as seen by some Orthodox Jews who oppose Chabad. The writers of the book criticize the belief that some Lubavitchers have that the Rebbe is the Messiah and the fact that the fringe of  those that believe this have even compared him to G-d and claim that he is G-d clothed in a human body. They write that the faith of those that believe the Rebbe is the Messiah do not just have faith, but actually take action in their beliefs. In doing so, their faith “is translated into action by directing prayers TO the Rebbe. All of the ‘sources’ that indicate one can ask tzadikim [saints]  to intercede for him with their prayers to HaShem [G-d] have no bearing on praying to the tzadik, upon whom one has conferred the qualities of omniscience and omnipotence, is avoda zara [idolatry]”.   They go on to say that these people claim that the anniversary of the Rebbe’s death is not really the anniversary of his death. There are some people at 770 that claim that he has never really died and one man even stated that he comes to 770 to pray every day. The opponents of Chabad use these things to claim that the Chabad movement is just like Christianity in that they believe a dead man is the Messiah and that some even pray to their dead messiah. Other Non-Lubavitcher Orthodox groups overlook these troubling developments and say this is just a fringe and not the real Chabad. This shows that not all Orthodox Jews are the same and that there is a variation among the different Orthodox groups. The opponents of Chabad point out that some elements of Chabad have built a cult like following in the belief that a deceased rabbi can be the Messiah, contrary to the Jewish view. However, the Rebbe himself would go to his father-in-law’s gravesite to communicate with him citing Hasidic sources that this was permissible.
   
While Chabad does important outreach work within the Jewish community, they have drawn criticism from other whites in rural America. Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America by Stephen G. Bloom, shows firsthand how a group of Lubavitchers, who settled in rural Iowa to set up a kosher slaughterhouse, were received by the white Gentile majority. The white Gentiles saw it as an affront to their way of life. Since assimilation is against Judaism, the Lubavitchers who settled there stuck to themselves and did not want to be a part of the general community. Jews are supposed to be a separate people and maintain their own communities without assimilating. This clashed with the way of life of Midwest America. In addition to not wanting to assimilate, there were great cultural differences. In his book, Stephen G. Bloom writes “Whenever some Jews hired local handymen, they strung out payments for months on end. Terry Szabo, who owned his own construction company, got so angry when he didn’t get paid that he hauled one of the Postville Jews into the Allamakee County small-claims court, and got a judgement levied against the man. One elderly Postville merchant broke down in tears when a Jewish man started dickering or a lower price, and once the merchant agreed to an unheard-of-price, the Jew refused to pay. ‘Can you imagine?’ asked Dawn Schmadeke, shaking her head, her right hand on her hip.”   As Jews are a Middle Eastern people, bargaining is a part of their culture. This however came as a shock to the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in rural Iowa. Other Iowans also mocked the way the Postville Jews pray in public and said they thought the Jews praying were going to fall over from the traditional swaying and bowing of Jewish prayer. But the Jews of Postville had their own white culture and didn’t need a Gentile white culture. The Postville Gentiles should be less ethnocentric and more open to accept the culture of those that are different from them.

As a white ethnic group, Jews are also a subject to the same demographic issues that other whites deal with. One such issue is urban flight. Chabad is headquartered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Aside from the Chabad Jews that live there, Crown Heights is mostly made up of black Jamaicans. On numerous occasions, there have been clashes between the two communities.

The most notable case of the clash between the Jews and the blacks of Crown Heights was the 1991 Crown Heights Pogrom. One of the vehicles in the Rebbe’s entourage accidentally ran over a black child. In response, many blacks in Crown Heights took part in Anti-Semitic rioting. The Mayor at the time was a black man by the name of David Dinkins and he did not stop the rioting. At the same time, the rioters were incited by black racists such as Al Sharpton to carry out Anti-Semitic attacks on the Jews of Crown Heights. This led Lemerick Nelson in cold blood, to murder Yankel Rosenbaum, a Jew from Australia who had come to Crown Heights to study in a Chabad yeshiva (religious school). The fact that the black jury acquitted the cold-blooded murderer only made matters worse by creating more animosity between the Jews and blacks of Crown Heights.

Chabad Jews also have moved out of Crown Heights to other areas due to the high crime rate attributed to the black population of Crown Heights. Many of them move to Morristown, New Jersey, which is the home of Chabad’s Rabbinical College of America. This Chabad yeshiva was originally situated in Newark, New Jersey but had to relocate due to the Newark race riots in the 1960s.

Breaking Jews up from the top to the bottom of the racial and cultural hierarchy provides an example of white cultural diversity. It is important that people know about different white ethnic groups in order to understand the many components that make up white culture. Using particular Jews as an example contributes to the study of white cultural diversity.