Chabad Lubavitch of France

Chabad-Lubavitch in France: the Paris office opened in 1947, the Brunoy yeshiva and Beth Rivkah schools, the Beth Loubavitch network founded by Chmouel Azimov, the association Jeunesse Loubavitch, a 2021–22 criminal inquiry, and links with Israel

Chabad Lubavitch of France
Logo
Type	Jewish religious organisation (Chabad-Lubavitch)
Founded	1947
Founder(s)	Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (Paris office, directed by Binyamin Gorodetsky)
Headquarters	Paris
Location	8 rue Lamartine, 75009 Paris (registered seat of Jeunesse Loubavitch ou Beth Loubavitch)
Area served	France
Services	Synagogues and community centres, schools, crèches, yeshivas, Talmud Torahs, youth programmes
Key people	Yossi Gorodetsky (director of the Bureau Lichka Lubavitch since 1992); Mendel Azimov (president of Jeunesse Loubavitch)
Website	https://www.loubavitchfrance.fr
Remarks	Its main association, Jeunesse Loubavitch ou Beth Loubavitch, is recognised as being of public utility (reconnue d'utilité publique)

Chabad Lubavitch of France (Habad Loubavitch de France) is the Chabad-Lubavitch network in France. Its organised presence dates from 1947, when Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, opened an office in Paris for the movement's work in Europe and North Africa. The largest French Chabad body is the Paris association Jeunesse Loubavitch ou Beth Loubavitch, which runs schools and crèches and is recognised as being of public utility. Chabad's world headquarters lists 200 Chabad institutions in France. In 2003 the journalist Sue Fishkoff wrote that "Chabad exerts considerable influence in the Jewish communities of France and Germany".

History

Schneerson in Paris

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who became the seventh Rebbe in 1950, lived in Paris before the Second World War. The sources consulted differ on the dates. A translator's note on Chabad.org says that he and his wife Chaya Mushka "lived in France from 1933-1941". The French Chabad news site Hassidout says he lived in Paris for "environ 7 ans à partir de 1935" (about seven years from 1935).

The Paris office (1947)

According to Habad Loubavitch de France, in 1947 Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn opened in Paris the headquarters of his overseas activities, covering Europe and North Africa and later Israel, and put Rabbi Binyamin Gorodetsky at its head. The office, known as the Bureau Lichka Lubavitch, settled Jewish refugee families from the displaced persons camps in Paris and its region and helped to fund schools, Talmud Torahs and community premises. In 1992 Schneerson sent Gorodetsky's grandson, Rabbi Yossi Gorodetsky, to direct the office; in 2009 he set up a "Tefilin Bank" and "Mezouza Bank" to sell these religious items at reduced prices.

Brunoy yeshiva and Beth Rivkah

The Yeshiva Tom'hei Temimim Loubavitch at Brunoy, in the Essonne, says it was founded in 1947. Hassidout attributes its founding to Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. A 1992 Chabad.org account of a "French farbrengen" with Schneerson describes a group of businessmen "underwriting the recent dynamic expansion of Chabad-Lubavitch activities in France", whose "foremost beneficiary" was the Brunoy yeshiva, housed at "Le Petit Chateau".

The Beth Rivkah girls' seminary says it was founded in 1947 by Schneerson, during his stay in Paris to receive his mother, under the Lichka office directed by Binyamin Gorodetsky; Rabbi Issahar Dov Gourevitch was its director from the start. Its campus is at Yerres, near Brunoy, 22 km from Paris. The Beth Rivkah school says it has "près de 1000 élèves" (nearly 1,000 pupils), almost all in classes under contract of association with the state. Fishkoff listed "a $ 15 million girls' school outside Paris" among Chabad's building projects around the world.

Beth Loubavitch and the Azimovs

Hassidout says that Rabbi Chmouel Azimov was born in Russia in 1945 and came to Paris with his family in 1948, where his father, Haim Hillel Zyslin-Azimov, founded more than twenty Talmud Torahs. Chmouel Azimov studied at the Brunoy yeshiva and married Bassie Shemtov, daughter of Bentsion Shemtov. He and his wife arrived in Paris on 30 April 1968 (2 Iyar 5728) as emissaries of Schneerson, and opened the first Beth Loubavitch at 8 rue Lamartine in 1972. The two Hassidout articles give different dates for the marriage: a 2026 article says it took place in New York in 1967, while a 2022 article gives 18 Adar 5728, which falls in 1968.

According to the 2022 article, Azimov had a stroke in 1998; Bassie Azimov died on 14 November 2011, aged 67, and Chmouel Azimov died on 5 November 2014, aged 69.

Organisation

Jeunesse Loubavitch ou Beth Loubavitch

The association Jeunesse Loubavitch ou Beth Loubavitch (RNA W751227407, SIREN 784414310) was declared on 9 April 1970 and published in the Journal officiel on 7 May 1970. It is recognised as being of public utility (reconnue d'utilité publique). Its registered object is cultural development and the promotion of social action among young people, including creating and running crèches, schools and colleges. Its seat is at 8 rue Lamartine, 75009 Paris. The national registers list among its establishments, all in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, the Collège privé Beth Hanna, the Crèche Haya Mouchka, the École maternelle Pardess Hanna, the École primaire privée Beth Hanna and the Lycée privé Beth Hanna. In 2022 Agence France-Presse named Mendel Azimov as its president. The Alliance news site described him in 2016 as "le principal émissaire Loubavitch à Paris".

Size

The sources consulted give different figures for the network:

• Chabad's world headquarters lists 200 institutions in France.
• In 2022 the movement told AFP it had "15.000 enfants inscrits dans ses écoles" (15,000 children enrolled in its schools).
• Hassidout wrote in 2022 of "450 émissaires des 150 centres Habad de 95 villes en Île-de-France", and said that the Beth 'Haya Mouchka school complex had 2,000 children and was "la plus grande école juive en Europe".
• Hassidout wrote in 2026 that the Beth Loubavitch school network had 2,500 pupils and 400 crèche places, with 30 Talmud Torah centres, more than 40 Loubavitch centres and about 200 emissaries.

State oversight of schools

In 2000 Senator Nicolas About (Yvelines) asked the Minister of Education about state checks on a strictly religious private Hebrew school under contract of association since 1990. The ministry's answer, published on 22 March 2001, named the school as Beth Rivkah de Yerres. It said an inspection of its primary classes on 25 June 1999 had found the position satisfactory on daily attendance checks, national assessment and teaching materials, but that it was not easy to assess the hours given to each subject, because of the fragmented timetable and the use of labels such as "morale, récit, rites".

Allegations

Criminal inquiry into Jeunesse Loubavitch (2021–22)

On 9 March 2022 Mediapart reported that the association running "la plus grande école Loubavitch d'Europe" was the subject of dozens of reports to the authorities in Paris, that an inquiry had been open since August, and that the city had decided to close one of its three crèches. The same day AFP reported that the Paris prosecutor's office had confirmed an inquiry into Jeunesse Loubavitch for "abus de confiance" (breach of trust), "travail dissimulé" (undeclared work) and "escroquerie" (fraud), assigned to the Brigade de répression de la délinquance astucieuse.

According to the AFP report, Mediapart's sources alleged:

• a "système de surfacturations" (over-invoicing) that allowed the three crèches to receive more subsidy from the family allowance fund (CAF);
• "conditions douteuses" (dubious conditions) in the pay of the president, Mendel Azimov;
• the use of donations "pour des dépenses personnelles" (for personal spending);
• that Azimov asked school heads not to declare Covid-19 cases.

Azimov told AFP that these were "allégations infondées et calomnieuses" (unfounded and slanderous allegations), made "dans un contexte de déstabilisation récurrente de l'Association", and that the association's work "s'est toujours inscrite dans le respect des lois et de la réglementation sociale". No outcome of the inquiry has been reported in the sources consulted.

In July 2024 Jean-Noël Aqua, a Communist councillor, told the Council of Paris that "la crèche gérée par l'association Jeunesse Loubavitch", which closes on Friday afternoons, was "l'objet d'une dizaine de signalements à Paris", and called for the city to stop funding faith-based crèches.

Israel connections

In 2016 the Alliance news site reported, citing the Israeli site NRG, that about 500 Chabad emissaries from across Europe had met at a congress in Moscow to discuss community security. It quoted Mendel Azimov as saying: "Nous avons reçu des propositions des ministères israéliens de la Défense et des Affaires étrangères" (we have received offers from the Israeli ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs). Azimov also said that the French government paid 80% of the security costs of Jewish communities.

In November 2023 Hassidout published an account by Rabbi Yossi Amar of the 19th annual "mission solidarité Israël" of Beth Habad 77, in Seine-et-Marne. The group visited four army bases near Gaza, held a barbecue for 500 soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, handed out 30 pairs of tefillin and linked to an appeal headed "Agissons pour nos soldats".

See also

• Chabad-Lubavitch movement
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to France
• Chabad Lubavitch of Germany
• Chabad Lubavitch of Netherlands
• Chabad Lubavitch of Italy