Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic movement.
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The Latest
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Life Chabad in Trouble?
Writing in The Jerusalem Post, former Chabad emissary turned media personality Rabbi Shmuley Boteach expresses concern for the current state of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement: Chabad is by now the most effective Jewish educational organization in history, and no movement works harder for the Jewish people or caters to more unaffiliated Jews. But success has brought…
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Life Using ‘Counterinsurgency’ Tactics, Hasidic Principal Restores Order to Troubled South Bronx School
The heroic educator who swoops in and rescues students at a troubled inner-city school is a favorite Hollywood trope: Think Jim Belushi in “The Principal,” Michelle Pfeiffer in “Dangerous Minds,” Edward James Olmos in “Stand and Deliver,” Morgan Freeman in “Lean on Me,” etc. This Friday’s New York Times featured a real-life story that is,…
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Life Who’s Your Messiah?
“If you believe that a dead man is the messiah, does that disqualify you from converting to Judaism?” That’s the question raised in a Jerusalem Post article about an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel under its Law of Return and was interested in converting to Judaism. While the rabbis were…
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Life Bar Mitzvah Smackdown: Chabad vs. Reform
Are Chabad bar mitzvahs a joke? Are Reform bar mitzvahs “institutional extortion”? The JTA’s Ami Eden has the blow-by-blow on the debate over which movement does a better bar mitzvah.
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Music Matisyahu Bids Chabad Adieu
The JTA reports: Orthodox Jewish reggae sensation Matisyahu is leaving the Chabad movement. “I am no longer identified with Chabad,” the American singer told Ha’aretz this week during a private visit to Israel. “Today it’s more important to me to connect to a universal message.” Born Matthew Miller, Matisyahu embraced Orthodox Judaism while studying in…
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Music Who Lost Matisyahu?
It looks like the Lubavitchers did. The Hasidic reggae sensation recently told the Miami New Times: My initial ties were through the Lubovitch sect… I went to a Hasidic school for two years in Brooklyn. At this point, I don´t necessarily identify with it any more. I´m really religious, but the more I´m learning about…
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Life The Rebbe and the Shoah
There have long been those within ultra-Orthodox Jewry who regarded the Holocaust as divine punishment for what they saw as the sins of the Jews: Zionism, liberalism, irreligiosity, religiosity they disliked, etc. Most recently, former Israeli chief Sephardic rabbi, Mordecai Eliyahu, placed the blame for the Nazi genocide on Reform Judaism. According to a respected…
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News ‘Boom Burbs’ Filling Up on People, But Jewish Life Is Slow To Follow
In the fastest-growing city in America — Elk Grove, Calif. — there are no synagogues or Jewish community centers, but there is an upstart messianic congregation that offers a place for people of Jewish descent to worship Jesus. A far-flung suburb of Sacramento, Elk Grove offers a window onto the religious trends on the booming…
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