Chabad in occupied Palestine

Chabad-Lubavitch activity in Palestine, 1777 to the present

Chabad in occupied Palestine
Type	Chabad-Lubavitch (Hasidic movement) institutions
Founded	1777 (Hasidic immigration led by Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk)
Headquarters	Beis Agudas Chasidei Chabad – 770, Kfar Chabad, 72915 (Agudat Chasidei Chabad in the Holy Land and Tzeirei Agudat Chabad)
Location	West Bank, East Jerusalem, occupied Golan Heights and the Zionist state ("Israel")
Services	820 institutions in 322 localities listed by Lubavitch.com in October 2026, at least 91 of them in the occupied territories
Key people	Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov (listed at the Kfar Chabad headquarters)
Website	Lubavitch.com directory: Israel; chabad.org.il
Remarks	In July 2024 the International Court of Justice found that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem "have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law"

Chabad in occupied Palestine covers the activity of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement (Hebrew: חב"ד) in historic Palestine, from the first Hasidic immigration in 1777 to the present. Chabad Hasidim settled in Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron in the early nineteenth century, and the historian Hillel Cohen writes that "in the nineteenth century, Hebron was the center of Chabad Hasidism in the Holy Land". In October 2026 the movement's own directory, Lubavitch.com, listed 820 Chabad institutions in 322 localities under "Israel", of which at least 91 are in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. The scholars Norton Mezvinsky and Joshua Kolb write that from 1967 until his death in 1994 the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, "encouraged increased settlement of Jews in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and opposed Israelis returning any land that was captured in 1967".

History

Early settlement, 1777–1820s

In 1777 Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, with Abraham of Kalisk and Israel of Polotsk, led a group of about 300 Hasidim to the Land of Israel. They settled first in Safed and later moved to Tiberias. According to Colel Chabad, Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad, set up Colel Chabad in 1788 to support the Hasidim in the Holy Land. David Biale and his co-authors estimate that on the eve of the First World War Hasidim numbered a few tens of thousands out of a Jewish population of about 70,000, most of them in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias, and count Chabad among the strongest of the groups that had settled early.

Hebron, c.1816–1929

Accounts differ on when Chabad Hasidim first settled in Hebron (חברון). The Jewish Community of Hebron says a wave of Hasidim moved there from Safed between 1816 and 1823 at the behest of the second Rebbe, Dovber Schneuri. A history based on the work of the Chabad historian Shalom Dovber Levin says that Chabad families who arrived in 1816–17 settled in Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem; that Dovber Schneuri told them in 1821–23 to settle in Hebron; and that the move took place between 1821 and 1826. Lubavitch.com dates Chabad's presence in Hebron from 1823. Cohen says that about fifteen Chabad families came from Safed "in the early nineteenth century". The Encyclopaedia Judaica says the community was headed by R. Simon Menahem Haikin, "who moved from Safed in 1840". The Chabad of Jerusalem account says the community in Hebron numbered "several hundred people" after the move, and 144 Chabad Hasidim in 1839.

Menucha Rochel Slonim moved to Hebron in 1845 with the encouragement of her cousin, the third Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, and in Cohen's words, "came to be known as the 'mother of the Ashkenazi Yishuv in Hebron'". The Jewish Community of Hebron says the synagogue now called the Menucha Rochel shul was bought by Dovber Schneuri himself and was "the very first Chabad-owned property in the Land of Israel". (See Menucha Rochel Synagogue.)

In January 1909 the fifth Rebbe, Shalom Dovber Schneersohn, bought the Beit Romano mansion (בית רומנו) and its courtyard, and added an adjacent lot for 3,100 silver roubles at the end of that year; Lubavitch.com says the ownership was recognised in 1913 in the names of Shalom Dovber and his son Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. The Jewish Community of Hebron says the house was built in 1879 by the Turkish merchant Haim Yisrael Romano, and that after the death of Rabbi Chaim Hezekiah Medini in 1904 it was bought for 22,000 silver roubles, 10,000 of them paid down.

Sources also differ on when the Chabad yeshiva Torat Emet (תורת אמת) opened. The Encyclopaedia Judaica says Shalom Dovber established it in 1900. The Jewish Community of Hebron describes an older Chabad yeshiva that operated from 1889 to 1912, and says Torat Emet was "in operation" in Beit Romano "by 1912". Cohen and Lubavitch.com say the yeshiva opened in Beit Romano in 1912. Biale and his co-authors write that Chabad sought to build Torat Emet in Hebron "as early as 1911", and that it closed as a result of the First World War. Its founder, Shlomo Zalman Havlin (1877–1936), re-established it in Jerusalem in 1922 and tried to open a branch in Tel Aviv in 1924, which closed the same year. The Jerusalem yeshiva moved every few years and, after Havlin's death in 1936, became the subject of disputes between his family and other Chabad rabbis.

Cohen writes that the Chabad community in Hebron "stood in the vanguard of the battle against Zionism", and that Shalom Dovber "viewed Zionism as a great menace". He also records exceptions. Ya'akov Yosef Slonim, secretary of the yeshiva from 1912, searched for land "in coordination with Zionist land-purchasing organizations", gathered intelligence on Hebron's Arabs after the British conquest, and helped found the National Muslim Associations, "Palestinian Arab groups that were founded with covert Zionist backing in order to undermine the Palestinian national movement" (p. 142). Yehuda Leib Schneurson, whom Cohen calls "the scion of the Chabad admors", survived the massacre and later joined Lehi (p. 145). According to Lubavitch.com, the Ottoman authorities seized the building in 1914, expelled the Russian-born students and teachers and turned it into a police station and courthouse, which the British took over in 1917.

About ten days before the riots of August 1929, the sixth Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, visited Hebron on his only trip to Palestine and was allowed into the inner compound of the Cave of the Patriarchs (Cohen, p. 152). Biale and his co-authors write that a delegation of Arab dignitaries reportedly welcomed him, but that "there are reports that the Arab riots that followed his departure were stimulated by his insistence on entering the cave, which Muslims also revered". In the 1929 Hebron massacre Jews in the city were killed, and Lubavitch.com says the British then moved the Chabad community, with the rest of Hebron's Jews, to Jerusalem. In a letter to Judge Gad Frumkin in June 1930, quoted by Cohen, Yosef Yitzchak wrote that he had left the country "with my heart pained at the state of the Old Yishuv" and had seen "bloodstains floating in the air of the Land of Israel"; Cohen reads this as blaming the disaster on the Zionist "New Yishuv's disregard for Torah institutions" (pp. 217–18). Biale and his co-authors describe him and Hayim Elazar Shapira of Munkács, who visited in 1930, as "two of the most prominent anti-Zionist rebbes of the day". On the eve of his departure he called on the faithful to "stand up to those who are rebellious in the nation, the secularists and hypocrites". Back in Europe, "perhaps reacting to the riots and murders that followed his departure", he said that the Holy Land had become one of the gates of hell, a stronghold of atheism.

Kfar Chabad and Chabad in the Zionist state, 1948–1967

According to Biale and his co-authors, Chabad had "relatively little success" in Palestine and later in the Zionist state until the 1960s; they suggest that its leaders may have discouraged Chabad Hasidim from emigrating there, and that it began to win a significant following only with the outreach of Menachem Mendel Schneerson after the Second World War.

Kfar Chabad (כפר חב"ד), between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, was founded as an agricultural village by Lubavitch refugees from the Soviet Union. Mezvinsky and Kolb give 1949 as the founding date; Lubavitch.com gives 1948. On the evening of 11 April 1956 a group of fedayeen who had crossed from Egypt attacked the village's vocational school, killing an instructor, Simcha Zilbershtrom, and five pupils aged 13 to 16. Schneerson declared a fast and encouraged the residents to stay; in July 1956 he sent twelve senior students from New York to spend a month in the village, one of his first such missions.

Biale and his co-authors describe Kfar Chabad as a sign of a "subtle shift" in the anti-Zionism of the sixth Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, who gave his blessing to an agricultural village for his Hasidim; construction began in 1949, at the close of the 1948 war, and his son-in-law Menachem Mendel Schneerson continued to encourage it. The village became a stronghold of Chabad activity in the Zionist state, with a Tomchei Temimim yeshiva and other educational institutions. After the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine it hosted the "Children of Chernobyl" project, and in the 1980s an exact replica of the movement's headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn was built there.

Tzeirei Agudat Chabad (צעירי אגודת חב"ד), the movement's youth and outreach arm in the Zionist state, was founded in 1952. Its English website says that under its chairman, Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov, it grew from 55 Chabad Houses in 1983 to 220 in 1997, and elsewhere gives a figure of 306. In 1969 Schneerson approved the founding of Nachlat Har Chabad in Kiryat Malachi for Chabad families and new immigrants from Georgia and Bukhara.

After 1967: the occupied territories

Mezvinsky and Kolb write that after the 1967 war Schneerson "emphasized the need for increased settlement by Jews in the biblical areas that were captured in that war, and argued vociferously against returning any captured land" to the Arab states, and that he was so dismayed by the return of Sinai to Egypt under the Camp David Accords that he afterwards did not meet top Israeli leaders. The historian Sara Yael Hirschhorn records that Rabbi Shlomo Riskin sought Schneerson's counsel about the settlement of Efrat, which the Rebbe "had recently given his blessing to".

Biale and his co-authors write that Chabad Hasidim began trying to bring secular Jews in the Zionist state to religious observance in the 1950s, but had real success only after the 1967 war. They ran courses in the Tanya for academics and students, and tefillin and Hanukkah campaigns in streets, shopping centres and airports, and arranged religious activities in the army, "even in remote, hazardous locations".

Hebron and Kiryat Arba

The Jewish Community of Hebron says that "since the Six Day War, the Rebbe had consistently maintained that the old Chabad properties were never to be relinquished", and that he gave Rabbi Moshe Levinger and the new settlers his blessing to use the buildings as they saw fit. In 1990, it says, Schneerson told Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh to set up Kollel Menucha Rochel. Lubavitch.com says that under Jordanian rule from 1948 Beit Romano housed an Arab girls' school and a bus station was built on the land; that in 1980, after an attack nearby in which a yeshiva student was killed, the Israeli government "returned the building and its surrounding land to Jewish hands"; and that Yeshivat Shavei Hevron then moved in and an army base was built on the land. In October 2018 the Israeli cabinet approved a new neighbourhood on the land, which Lubavitch.com says was part of the parcel bought by Chabad in 1909. B'Tselem says the project, "known as the Hezekiah Quarter or the Chabad Quarter", is to be built on the Plugat Hamitkanim army base, and that in October 2017 a planning subcommittee of the Civil Administration decided that Palestinians had no protected rights in the area and authorised 31 housing units.

The Chabad of Kiryat Arba house was opened in 1986 by Rabbi Victor Atiyah and his wife Devorah Nechama, née Nachshon. In 2002 Rabbi Danny and Batsheva Cohen joined them and set up a branch inside Hebron aimed at the soldiers stationed there; Chabad of Hebron says it now has seven emissary families and is "fully and entirely funded by our supporters". The Jewish Community of Hebron says the Cohens have led Chabad of Hebron "since the mid 2000s" and restored the Menucha Rochel synagogue in 2005.

B'Tselem reported in 2019 that about 700 settlers lived in Hebron's H2 area, some 400 permanently and about 300 students of the Shavei Hevron yeshiva, among about 7,000 Palestinians. It says that since October 2000 a-Shuhada Street "was permanently closed off to Palestinian foot and car traffic and all Palestinian commercial activity was banned".

West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan

Peace Now counted 146 government-established settlements in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, in August 2026. The Lubavitch.com directory lists Chabad houses and institutions under 48 West Bank place names, including Hebron and Kiryat Arba, with six entries in Beitar Illit, three in Efrat and three in Modi'in Illit, as well as Ariel, Ma'ale Adumim, Kedumim, Ofra, Shiloh and Yitzhar, the home of Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva. In East Jerusalem it lists 29 entries, in the Old City and in the post-1967 neighbourhoods of Har Homa, Pisgat Ze'ev, Gilo, Ramot, French Hill, Neve Yaakov, Ramat Eshkol and East Talpiot. The full list is in the tables below. The tables give, for each locality, its status and founding year as recorded by Peace Now: it records 45 of the West Bank place names as government-established settlements, including the settler enclave in Hebron and Kiryat Arba, and Kfar Eldad as a neighbourhood approved in 2011; it lists the post-1967 East Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Har Homa, Pisgat Ze'ev, Neve Yaakov, Gilo, Ramot, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol and East Talpiot among its settlements, as neighbourhoods. B'Tselem says that from 1967 to the end of 2017 more than 200 Israeli settlements were established in the West Bank, including about 110 "illegal outposts" and 11 neighbourhoods in the areas annexed to the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem, and that the establishment of the settlements contravenes international humanitarian law. In July 2024 the International Court of Justice reaffirmed that "the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the régime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law". In 1981 UN Security Council Resolution 497, adopted unanimously, decided that Israel's decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the "occupied Syrian Golan Heights" was "null and void and without international legal effect". It demanded that Israel, "the occupying Power", rescind the decision forthwith, and determined that the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 continued to apply to the Syrian territory occupied by Israel since June 1967. In the occupied Golan Heights, Chabad of the Golan Heights at Ani'am was founded in 2016 by Rabbi Sholom and Devorah Hertzel, and opened a branch in Bnei Yehuda in 2020.

Biale and his co-authors write that settlement beyond the Green Line became attractive to Hasidim for economic rather than ideological reasons, and that Hasidim moved into new Haredi towns in the West Bank such as Immanuel, Beitar Illit and Modi'in Illit, which they date to 1983, 1988 and 1990 respectively; Peace Now gives 1985 for Beitar Illit and 1996 for Modi'in Illit. They cite a 2015 survey according to which Haredi populations accounted for 40 per cent of the growth beyond the Green Line, almost all of it in Beitar Illit and Modi'in Illit. They also write that there are Hasidim or quasi-Hasidim, "especially associated with Chabad and Bratslav", in some of the illegal "hilltop" settlements in the West Bank; these young people are mostly of religious Zionist background and are not recognised as Hasidim by the mainstream Hasidic communities.

Gaza

In December 2023, during the war in Gaza, Chabad students serving at a yeshiva in Tel Aviv had a "Chabad House" sign printed, and an Israeli soldier who studied there hung it on a damaged building in Beit Hanoun, in the north of the Gaza Strip. One of the organisers told COLlive that the soldiers planned "to raise the sign in the next location they go to as well". In January 2024 Tzeirei Chabad organised the printing of a copy of the Tanya with soldiers on the outskirts of Khan Yunis. Writing for Press TV in March 2024, David Miller described the Beit Hanoun sign as an "outpost" and said many soldiers wore Chabad patches on their uniforms.

Chabad and the army

Mezvinsky and Kolb write that in 1972 Schneerson sent two hundred emissaries to the Egyptian border and the Golan Heights to persuade soldiers to put on tefillin, and that in 1973 he urged, through an emissary to Moshe Dayan, that the army capture Damascus. Biale and his co-authors write that from the 1970s nearly all Hasidim have rejected conscription, the exception being Chabad, many of whose Hasidim enlist at a relatively advanced age and are therefore given a shorter term of service. According to the same authors, Ariel Sharon claimed that Schneerson had advised him on military tactics. Chabad of Hebron describes its main work as serving "thousands of IDF Soldiers protecting the region" every week. (See Israel Defense Forces.)

The Chabad Terror Victims Project, based in Kfar Chabad and directed by Rabbi Menachem Kutner, was set up, according to Kutner, on Schneerson's instruction to help war widows and orphans after the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars. In 2004 Kutner said most of its money came "from donors in the United States". In 2019 Ynet reported that it worked with some 3,000 families of victims of attacks, "both civilians and members of the military".

Politics of territory

Main article: Chabad and Israeli politics

Mezvinsky and Kolb write that Schneerson and his followers were "adamant in objecting to land for peace proposals", although he allowed that some territory, "although none of the Holy Land", might be returned if there was "an absolute guarantee that this would save Jewish lives".

Biale and his co-authors write that, except in the 1988 election, Chabad never joined Agudat Yisrael. Schneerson kept the anti-Zionist rhetoric of his predecessors, avoiding the words "State of Israel", but in practice showed "a deep solidarity with the state". He took "an uncompromising position against withdrawal" from the territories captured in 1967; the authors write that, although he justified this on halakhic grounds, he also appears to have been driven by his messianism, seeing the expansion of the state's borders as part of the preparation for redemption. After the 1967 war he ruled that it was forbidden to withdraw from any territory captured in it, "not even in exchange for a peace offer". In 1988, for the only time, he directed that votes be cast for a party, and Agudat Yisrael gained three seats. In 1990 he told the Haredi members of the Knesset not to take part in a parliamentary manoeuvre to bring down the right-wing government of Yitzhak Shamir and replace it with one led by Shimon Peres; the manoeuvre, later called "the stinking ploy" (ha-targil ha-masri'ah), was headed off "mainly because of the rebbe's intercession". The Lithuanian leader Elazar Shach, the authors write, "would refer to the Chabad rebbe as 'the false Messiah' (and in private as 'Shabbetai Tsvi' …)" and to Chabad as "that well-known sect". Among his grievances was "the rebbe's opposition to territorial concessions"; Shach himself was "relatively dovish on this question". Most other Hasidic leaders, they write, rejected Schneerson's messianism, "although quite a few shared his opposition to territorial concessions", while the heads of Ger, Vizhnits and Belz "on the whole took a more flexible and dovish stance on the question of the territories". Students of Yitzhak Ginsburgh of Od Yosef Chai in Yitzhar have, in the words of the scholar Tessa Satherley, "been at the vanguard of anti-Arab vigilante violence and the 'price tag' campaign". Biale and his co-authors describe Ginsburgh (born 1944), an American-born baal teshuvah who lives in Kfar Chabad and still considers himself a Chabad Hasid, as a quasi-rebbe whose followers include the so-called hilltop youth, who build homes at sites in the West Bank, often against government policy. He founded the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus; it moved to Yitzhar after Palestinians took the tomb during the Second Intifada in 2001. In 1989 he led a group of seven families that founded the settlement of Bat Ayin, south-west of Jerusalem; it now has some two hundred families, many of them baalei teshuvah loosely affiliated with Chabad or Bratslav, and the authors say it is regarded as politically radical and that some of its residents have been associated with acts of terror and revenge against Palestinians. They describe the hilltop youth as "a highly volatile and at times violent group, which follows its own eclectic and even antinomian version of halakhah". Ginsburgh's teachings, they write, apply Talmudic, Kabbalistic and Hasidic ideas to "contemporary political problems, primarily the conflict between Jews and Arabs". He "earned special notoriety" with Barukh ha-Gever, a volume "justifying Baruch Goldstein's massacre of twenty-nine Palestinians in Hebron on the holiday of Purim in 1994". In their summary, Ginsburgh presented the killings as at once self-defence (Goldstein "was alleged to have thwarted an Arab attack"), revenge for earlier Arab attacks, and martyrdom, because Goldstein "was killed by Arabs during his rampage". Two of Ginsburgh's disciples, they write, took the argument further in Torat ha-Melekh (The Law of the King): "Motivated by acute messianism, this group rejects the authority of the State of Israel and legitimates violence as part of the redemptive process." The authors add that "many individual Hasidim, especially those connected with Chabad, may share these kind of extreme views, which have made inroads generally in the haredi world", but that "no Hasidic group as such embraces such politics or the violence that at times accompanies it".

Funding

Colel Chabad runs the Larissa Blavatnik Network of Daycare Centers, named after the wife of Leonard Blavatnik; it says the network serves 970 children in 16 locations, with centres named after donors including the York, Luxenberg and Menin families. Two of the centres are listed in Beitar, that is the settlement of Beitar Illit in the West Bank. On 20 June 2025 an Iranian missile hit Colel Chabad's daycare centre in Be'er Sheva, the Tchelet Mordechai Campus, York Center, which COLlive described as part of the Ohr Chaya and Laurisa Blavatnik chain and as one of 18 daycare centres run by Colel Chabad in Israel. No children or staff were hurt, as the strike came outside the centre's operating hours, but the building was significantly damaged. Colel Chabad's director, Rabbi Sholom Duchman, said it would be repaired and reopened, and an emergency appeal was launched.

Lev Leviev attended a Chabad yeshiva after his family moved to the Zionist state in 1971, and in 2007 The Forward described him as "president and chief donor of the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS" (Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS). According to Who Profits, Danya Cebus, a subsidiary of his company Africa Israel Investments, won a tender in 1999 to build 72 homes in Har Homa, won a tender in 2004 for 2,500 homes in Modi'in Illit, and worked in Ma'ale Adumim; Who Profits gives Leviev's holding in the company as 48.13%. In 2008 the architect Abe Hayeem wrote in The Guardian that Leviev was "a major donor to the Land Redemption Fund", which he described as "affiliated with the radical fundamentalist Gush Emunim settler movement" (Gush Emunim).

In June 2008 Reuters reported that UNICEF had cut its ties with Leviev because of his suspected involvement in building settlements in the occupied West Bank, after a campaign by the Arab rights advocacy group Adalah-NY. A UNICEF official said the agency had found "at least a reasonable grounds for suspecting" that companies owned by Leviev were building settlements in occupied territory. Chris de Bono, a senior adviser to UNICEF's executive director, said the agency would not enter into partnerships with, or accept financial contributions from, Leviev or his "corporate people"; he said UNICEF was aware of the controversy over Leviev's reported construction work in the occupied Palestinian territory and that its policy was for partners to be "as non-controversial as possible". Leviev was then chairman of Africa Israel Investments, whose units include Danya Cebus, which Adalah-NY accused of carrying out settlement construction. According to de Bono, Leviev's only known partnership with UNICEF was a donation of jewellery in 2007 to a fashion event in France that benefited UNICEF's French national committee; UNICEF could not say how much Leviev had given as an individual. Representatives of Leviev's jewellery and property businesses were not available for comment.

Tzeirei Agudat Chabad says it is "funded by grants and donations from within Israel and from the Jewish community in the Diaspora". In November 2015 the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced the organisation's former chairman, Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov, to two years in prison and a fine of 1.5 million shekels. Under a plea bargain he had been convicted of obtaining something by fraud in aggravated circumstances, fraud and breach of trust in a corporation, false entries in corporate documents, and fraud with intent to evade tax. According to the indictment, which covered 1999 to 2007, the organisation was funded by donations from Israel and abroad and by support from the state budget; Aharonov received about 3.5 million shekels through a private bank account named "Chabad Chernobyl Children", and helped employees of the organisation obtain Education Ministry support unlawfully. In court Aharonov said that "even if I sinned, I did not do it for my home". The judge wrote that he had harmed "the good name of Chabad". The Times of Israel reported that Aharonov, whom it described as head of Agudat Tze'irei Chabad (the Chabad Youth Society), had admitted receiving donations meant for the Chabad movement for nine years without reporting them, and that the society's employees had not reported sources of income and had received Education Ministry aid illegally. It described the case as a major tax fraud involving millions of shekels and gave the fine as 500,000 shekels, whereas Kikar HaShabbat gave 1.5 million. The sentencing judgment records that he was convicted on his own admission of two counts of obtaining something by fraud in aggravating circumstances, two of fraud and breach of trust in a corporation, one of false entry in corporate documents and 18 of tax evasion, and that the court imposed 24 months' imprisonment, less 16 days in custody, 12 months suspended for three years, and a fine of NIS 1,500,000 in ten instalments; The Times of Israel gave the fine as NIS 500,000. The court found that between 2002 and 2006 NIS 3,547,879 raised by the US charity Chabad Children of Chernobyl was transferred to Aharonov's private account, and that the organisation fraudulently received more than NIS 17 million in Education Ministry support in 1999–2001 on the strength of "proper management" certificates obtained with false statements; it also found that the organisation's foreign donations for 2004 and 2005 had been under-reported. The judgment notes that liquidation proceedings concerning the organisation were under way at the Central-Lod District Court (case 7418-10-15) to replace its officers, including the chairman, and that his conviction barred him by law from the board of any association. His defence said he had taken no money for himself.

Institutions in the occupied territories

The tables below list every entry in the Lubavitch.com directory for localities in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights, as listed in October 2026. Duplicate entries are merged. Addresses are as given in the directory. The last column gives each locality's status in Peace Now's settlements list; a dash means the place has no entry of its own there. Peace Now's list does not cover the Golan Heights.

West Bank (including Hebron)

Locality	Institution (directory name)	Address	Source	Status (Peace Now)
Adora	Chabad Adora	Ha-Alon Street 50, Adora		Settlement (est. 1984)
Alfei Menashe	Chabad of Alfei Menashe	Merkaz Mischari 10, Alfei Menashe, 44851		Settlement (est. 1983)
Almon	Chabad Anatot	Avnei Khoshen Street 1, Almon		Settlement (est. 1982)
Alon Shvut	Chabad of Alon Shvut	19 Al-Agoz, Alon Shvut		Settlement
Ariel	Chabad of Ariel	Haziyonut 21, Ariel, 4076015		Settlement (est. 1978)
Avnei Hefetz	Chabad of Avnei Hefetz	Carmel St 39, Avnei Hefetz		Settlement (est. 1990)
Barkan	Chabad Barkan	–		Settlement (est. 1981)
Beit Aryeh-Ofarim	Chabad Beit Arye - Ofarim	Akhirotem 182, Beit Aryeh-Ofarim		Settlement (est. 1981)
Beitar Illit	Chabad Giving Circle - Keren Betesh	Ba'al HaTanya St 12, Beitar Eilit, 9053711		Settlement (est. 1985)
Beitar Illit	Chabad Mate Yehudah	3 Rabbi Akiva Street, Beitar Illit, 9050104		Settlement (est. 1985)
Beitar Illit	Chabad of Beitar Eilit	Beitar Illit		Settlement (est. 1985)
Beitar Illit	Heichel Menachem / Merkaz Chabad	Ba'al HaTanya Street 10 Kikar Hashluchim, Beitar Illit, 90500		Settlement (est. 1985)
Beitar Illit	Lubavitch Kollel	Mutzafi Street 4, Beitar Illit, 9055117		Settlement (est. 1985)
Beitar Illit	Tomchei Tmimim Beitar Eilit	Kaf Hachayim 7, Beitar Illit, 88879		Settlement (est. 1985)
Efrat	Chabad of Efrat	Merkaz Hadekel 14, Efrat, 90435		Settlement (est. 1980)
Efrat	Chabad of Efrat English Division	7? Haomer, Efrat		Settlement (est. 1980)
Efrat	Chabad Shchunat HaZayit	–		Settlement (est. 1980)
Einav	Chabad Einav	Ha-Gevurah 770, Einav, 44857		Settlement (est. 1981)
El'azar	Chabad of El'azar	–		Settlement (est. 1975)
Elon More	Chabad of Elon More	–		Settlement (est. 1979)
Emanuel	Chabad of Emanuel	Emanuel		Settlement (est. 1983)
Geva Binyamin	Chabad Adam	Geva Binyamin		–
Giv'at Ze'ev	Chabad of Giv'at Ze'ev	46 Hamakabim, Giv'at Ze'ev, 90917		Settlement (est. 1983)
Gush Etzion	Chabad of Bat Ayin	–		–
Har Adar	Chabad Har Adar	Nof Harim 75, Har Adar, 90970		Settlement (est. 1986)
Hashmona'im	Chabad of Hashmona'im	Arvei Nakhal 2, Hashmona'im, 73127		Settlement (est. 1985)
Karmei Tzur	Chabad of Karmei Tsur	GaGefen Street 1, Karmei Tzur		Settlement (est. 1984)
Karnei Shomron	Chabad of Karnei Shomron	770 Ha-Arava, Karnei Shomron, 44855		Settlement (est. 1978)
Kedumim	Chabad of Kadumim	820 Karmey Kedem, Kedumim, 44856		Settlement (est. 1977)
Kfar Eldad	Beit Chabad Kfar Eldad	–		Neighbourhood (est. 1982; approved as a neighbourhood 29 May 2011)
Kfar Ezion	Chabad of Kfar Ezion	Chabad of Kfar Ezion, Rabbi Nosson Avraham		Settlement (est. 1967)
Kochav Yaakov	Torat Menachem Tel Zion	Ahavat Yisrael 34, Kochav Yaakov		Settlement (est. 1985)
Ma'ale Adumim	Beit Chabad 06 Tzemah Asadeh	Ha-Shita Street 35, Ma'ale Adumim		Settlement (est. 1975)
Ma'ale Adumim	Chabad of Ma'ale Adumim	Ha-Nekhalim 770, Ma'ale Adumim, 90610		Settlement (est. 1975)
Ma'ale Efrayim	Chabad Maale Efrayim	Ma'ale Efrayim		Settlement
Mevo Horon	Chabad Mevo Horon	–		Settlement
Mitzpeh Yericho	Chabad of Yeshuvai Chevel Yericho	4 Ha'moriya street, Mitzpeh Yericho, 9065100		Settlement (est. 1978)
Modi'in Illit	The Chassidic Library	Modi'in Illit		Settlement (est. 1996)
Modi'in Illit	Chabad of Modi'in Illit	Modi'in Illit		Settlement (est. 1996)
Modi'in Illit	Chassidic Library - Green Park	Ponovezh 7, Modi'in Illit		Settlement (est. 1996)
Neve Daniel	Chabad Neve Daniel	4 Migdal Eder, Neve Daniel, 9090900		Settlement (est. 1982)
Nili	Chabad of Nili	–		Settlement (est. 1981)
Ofra	Beit Chabad Ofra	Levi Street 15, Ofra		Settlement (est. 1975)
Oranit	Chabad of Oranit	Ha-Egoz 14, Oranit, 44813		Settlement (est. 1985)
Otniel	Chabad of Atniel	Otniel 5, Otniel, 90407		Settlement (est. 1983)
Peduel	Chabad Peduel	–		Settlement (est. 1984)
Sal'it	Beit Chabad Sal'it	–		Settlement (est. 1977)
Shaarei Tikva	Chabad of Shaarei Tikva	Yahalom Street 25, Shaarei Tikva		Settlement (est. 1983)
Shiloh	Chabad Shiloh	–		Settlement (est. 1979)
Shvut Rachel	Chabad of Mateh Binyamin	Doar Na Efrayim, Shvut Rachel, 44830		Settlement (est. 1991)
Susya	Chabad Susya	–		Settlement (est. 1983)
Tekoa	Chabad of Tekoa	–		Settlement (est. 1977)
Telem	Chabad Telem	Telem 770, Telem, 9040900		Settlement (est. 1982)
Teneh Omarim	Chabad of Teneh Omarim	–		Settlement (est. 1983)
Tzufim	Chabad Tzufim	Zayit Street 144, Tzufim		Settlement (est. 1989)
Yits'har	Chabad of Yits'har	–		Settlement (est. 1983)
Hebron	Chabad of Hebron	770 Avraham Avinu, Hebron, 90100		Settlement (est. 1978)
Hebron (Kiryat Arba)	Chabad of Kiryat Arba	Kiryat Arba, Hebron		Settlement (est. 1972)

East Jerusalem

Locality	Institution (directory name)	Address	Source	Status (Peace Now)
Old City	Chabad of Old City - Jerusalem	–		–
Old City	The Tzemach Tzedek Synagogue	Chabad 31 Old City, Jerusalem, 97500		–
Old City	Colel Tzemach Tzedek	Chabad Street 53, The Old City, Jerusalem, 97500		–
Old City	Chabad of the Cardo	Cardo 1, Jerusalem, 91010		–
Old City	Chabad of the Western Wall - The Kotel	The Kotel, Jerusalem		–
Old City	Eshel at the Western Wall by Colel Chabad	Hakotel Street 7, Jerusalem, 92144		–
Old City	Abraham's Tent	Misgav Ladach 54, Jerusalem		–
Mount Zion	Beit Chabad Kaver Dovid HaMelech	Ma'ale Shazkh Street 2, Jerusalem, 9160502		–
Har Homa	Chabad Har Chomah	Jerusalem, 9312817		Neighbourhood (est. 1991)
Har Homa	Chabad Har Khoma	Ha-Rav Yitskhak Nisim 38, Jerusalem, 93125		Neighbourhood (est. 1991)
Pisgat Ze'ev	Chabad Jerusalem - Pisgat Zeev Hamerkaz	Pisgat Ze'ev, Jerusalem		Neighbourhood (est. 1985)
Pisgat Ze'ev	Chabad Jerusalem-Pisgat Zeev Tzafon	Sderot Moshe Dayan 69, Jerusalem, 9783735		Neighbourhood (est. 1985)
Pisgat Ze'ev	Chabad of Pisgat Ze'ev Mizrach	Jerusalem		Neighbourhood (est. 1985)
Pisgat Ze'ev	Chabad House - Educational Center	Pisgat Ze'ev, Jerusalem		Neighbourhood (est. 1985)
Neve Yaakov	Chabad of Neve Yaakov	–		Neighbourhood (est. 1972)
Gilo	Chabad of Gilo - Jerusalem	Merkaz Mischari Chadash 800a, Jerusalem, 9111201		Neighbourhood (est. 1971)
Gilo	Beit Chabad Mordot Gila	Avner Chai Sheki 41, Jerusalem, 9385881		Neighbourhood (est. 1971)
Gilo	Colel Chabad "Chochmat Nashim"	Vardinon Street 12, Giloh, Jerusalem, 91112		Neighbourhood (est. 1971)
Gilo	Gan Chaya Mushka for girls	Shabtai Hanegbi Street 63 Giloh, Jerusalem, 91112		Neighbourhood (est. 1971)
Ramot	Chabad of Ramot - Jerusalem	Golda Me'ir Boulevard 225, Jerusalem, 97725		Neighbourhood
Ramot	Chabad Synagogue Kol Yaakov	Shirat Hayam Street 7, Jerusalem, 97725		Neighbourhood
French Hill	Chabad of Givha Tzarfatit - Jerusalem	Hahagana 6 -Givha Tzarfatit, Jerusalem, 97852		Neighbourhood (est. 1968)
French Hill / Mount Scopus	Chabad of Hebrew University	French Hill, Jerusalem		Neighbourhood (est. 1968)
French Hill	Chabad Synagogue Shchunat Shapiro	Hahagana Street, Jerusalem, 97852		Neighbourhood (est. 1968)
Ramat Eshkol	Chabad Ramat Eshkol	Ramat Eshkol, Jerusalem		Neighbourhood (est. 1968)
East Talpiot	Chabad of Talpiot Mizrach	207 Shlomo Ben Yosef Street, Jerusalem, 91290		Neighbourhood (est. 1973)
Armon HaNatziv	Chabad Synagogue (Beit Canada, Armon Hanatziv)	Beit Canada Armon Hanitziv, Jerusalem, 91000		–
Sanhedria HaMurhevet	Chabad Synagogue Sanhedria Hamurchevet	Sanhedria Hamurchevet 124, Jerusalem, 97707		–
Har Hotzvim	Chabad of Har Hotzvim	–		–

Golan Heights

Locality	Institution (directory name)	Address	Source	Status (Peace Now)
Katzrin	Chabad of Kazrin	Hachatzav 4, Kazrin, 12900		–
Hispin	Chabad of Chispin	–		–
Ani'am	Chabad of the Golan Heights	Kfar Ha-Omanim 2, Aniam, 129500		–

Zionist entity ("Israel")

Most Chabad institutions in the region are inside the Green Line. The Lubavitch.com directory lists 820 Chabad institutions under "Israel", including the occupied territories; the largest local listings are Jerusalem (91 entries, East and West), Tel Aviv (46), Kiryat Malachi (31), Haifa (26), Kfar Chabad (23) and Lod (21). The Chabad.org directory of Jewish centres maps Chabad centres across the area, concentrated along the coastal plain, especially around Tel Aviv, in and around Jerusalem and in the Galilee, with further centres in the occupied West Bank, in the Negev and as far south as Eilat. The directory lists centres by locality, often with several institutions in one place: a search from Abirim in the Galilee, for example, returned centres in Ma'alot, Nahariya, Karmiel, Safed and Akko, among them the Beit Chana Schools, the Beit Chana Seminary, the Mikva Chana ritual bath and the Beit Hakneset Heichal Levi Yitzchak in Safed's Kiryat Chabad neighbourhood. Its list of localities includes West Bank settlements such as Adora, Alfei Menashe, Almon, Alon Shvut, Ariel, Avnei Hefetz and Barkan. Colel Chabad, the movement's charity in the Holy Land, runs a network of day-care centres and welfare programmes, but not the movement's other institutions. Biale and his co-authors write that in 2009 residents of the Ramat Aviv Gimmel neighbourhood of Tel Aviv opposed the opening of a Chabad house there, calling Chabad a "missionary sect", and that in 2012 a shopping centre in the same area refused to admit Chabad on the same grounds.

Central institutions

Institution	Locality	Address	Source
Agudas Chasidei Chabad B'Eretz HaKodesh	Kfar Chabad	Beis Agudas Chasidei Chabad – 770, Kfar Chabad, 72915
Tzeirei Agudat Chabad headquarters	Kfar Chabad	Beit Shazar, Kfar Chabad, 60840
Kehot Publishing House – Israel	Kfar Chabad	770, Kfar Chabad, 6084000
Yeshiva Oholei Tmimim	Kfar Chabad	HaRabbi Milubavitch 1, Kfar Chabad, 60840
Chabad's Children of Chernobyl	Kfar Chabad	–
Chabad Terror Victims Project	Kfar Chabad	–
Central Yeshivat Tomchei Tmimim	Lod	–
Chabad of Ben Gurion Airport	Lod	Ben Gurion Airport, Lod, 70100
Colel Chabad	Jerusalem	Hachnasat Orchim Street 5, Jerusalem, 95242
Yeshivat Torat Emet	Jerusalem	Yirmiyahu 16, Jerusalem, 95306
Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies	Jerusalem	28 David Yellin Street, Jerusalem, 9128001
Vaad Nachlat Har Chabad	Kiryat Malachi	Nachlat Har Chabad, Kiryat Malachi
Yeshivat Tomchei Tmimim, Kiryat Malachi	Kiryat Malachi	Nachlat Har Chabad 159, Kiryat Malachi, 83033
Yeshivat Tomchei Tmimim, Migdal HaEmek	Migdal HaEmek	Habad Street 13, Migdal ha-Emek, 10552
Ascent – Inner Dimensions of Jewish Life	Safed	Ha-Ari 2, Safed, 13102
Machon Alte	Safed	Yerushalayim 33, Safed, 13410
Beit Chana Seminary	Safed	Kiryat Chabad 220/63, Safed, 13410
Chabad of Tiberias	Tiberias	Rashi 7, Tiberias, 14225

Community centres

Name	Location	Type	Address	Source
Chabad of Eged Jerusalem	Jerusalem	Community centre (central bus station)	Yaffo 224 Central Station, Jerusalem, 99879
Chabad of Rechavia	Jerusalem	Community centre	52 King George Street, Jerusalem
Agudat Kiryat Chabad-Chabad of Safed (also listed as Chabad of Tzefat and Chabad Lubavitch of Safed)	Safed	Community centre	Kiryat Chabad 220, Safed, 13410
Chabad of Haifa (also listed as Chabad Lubavitch of Haifa)	Haifa	Community centre	Ge'ula Street 54, Haifa
Chabad of Or Yehuda	Or Yehuda	Community centre	David Elazar 30, Giora, Or Yehuda, 60312
Chabad of El'ad	El'ad	Community centre (founded 1999)	Even Gabirol 13, El'ad, 40800
Chabad of Rishon LeZion (directory name: Chabad Rishon Leziyon)	Rishon LeZion	Community centre	Haasis 23, Rishon LeZion, 7549223
Chabad Lubavitch of Jerusalem	Jerusalem	Directory listing (91 entries)	–
Chabad Lubavitch of Tel Aviv-Yafo	Tel Aviv-Yafo	Directory listing (46 entries)	–
Chabad Lubavitch of Beersheva	Beersheva	Directory listing (11 entries)	–
Chabad Lubavitch of Netanya	Netanya	Directory listing (14 entries)	–
Chabad Lubavitch of Ashdod	Ashdod	Directory listing (12 entries)	–
Chabad Lubavitch of Ashkelon	Ashkelon	Directory listing (7 entries)	–

The Chabad of Kiryat Arba entry, previously listed here under Hebron, is now in the West Bank table above.

Yeshivot

Chabad runs yeshivot under the Tomchei Tmimim network and its affiliates.

Name	Location	Type	Address	Source
Yeshivat Torat Emet (formerly listed as Yeshiva Toras Emes Chabad Lubavitch and Toras Emes Chabad Lubavitch)	Jerusalem	Yeshiva	Yirmiyahu 16, Jerusalem, 95306
Yeshivas Tzeirei Hashluchim	Safed	Yeshiva	Ha-Gdud ha-Shlishi 5, Safed, 13410
Yeshiva Temimei Derech	Safed	Yeshiva	Jerusalem St 120, Safed, 13410
Yeshiva Chabad of Tzfat (listed by Tzeirei Agudat Chabad as "Chabad Lubavitch – Safed")	Safed	Yeshiva gedola	Ha-Ari 5, Safed
Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim Elad	El'ad	Yeshiva	Yochanan Ben Zakai 81, El'ad, 40800
Kollel Or Menachem (listed by Kol Sherut as "Yeshiva and Kollel Or Menachem")	Or Yehuda	Yeshiva and kollel	Ma'ale Hamigdal 6, Or Yehuda (offices of Chabad Tomchei Temimim – Or Menachem, Israeli charity number 580439081)
Tomchei Tmimim yeshivot affiliated with Chabad in Kfar Chabad	Kfar Chabad	Yeshiva network	–

Nurseries and day-care centres

Colel Chabad says its Larissa Blavatnik Network of Daycare Centers spans "16 strategic locations" and serves 970 children; its website lists the following 18 centres. The two Beitar centres are in Beitar Illit, a settlement in the West Bank.

Name	Location	Type
Myra York Daycare Center	Afula	Nursery
Stieglitz Educational Campus	Ashdod	Nursery
Luxenberg Early Childhood Center	Ashdod	Nursery
Chaya Mushka Day Care Center	Ashkelon	Nursery
Steve Kramer Day Care Center (also listed as Colel Chabad Daycare in Beitar Illit)	Beitar Illit (West Bank)	Nursery
Barry and Miriam Menin Early Childhood Center	Beitar Illit (West Bank)	Nursery
Bigman Family Day Care Center	Karmiel	Nursery
Fisher Family Early Childhood Center	Karmiel	Nursery
Shmuel Issac Popack Early Childhood Center	Kfar Chabad	Nursery
Fruchter Daycare Center	Kiryat Bialik	Nursery
Hayim Mordehai Kohen Day Care Center	Lod	Nursery
Miriam & Shmuel Isaac Daycare Center	Lod	Nursery
Luxenberg Daycare Center	Migdal HaEmek	Nursery
Ateret Rus Day Care Center	Rishon LeZion	Nursery
Chaya Mushka Day Care Center	Safed	Nursery
Luxenberg Daycare Center	Sderot	Nursery
York Family Daycare Center	Yavne	Nursery
York Family Daycare Center	Beersheva	Nursery
Larissa Blavatnik Network of Daycare Centers	Various (16 locations)	Nursery network
Ohr Chaya and Larisa Blavatnik chain	Various	Nursery chain
Tchelet Mordechai Campus	Beersheva	Nursery

See also

• Chabad centres in Palestine (directory)
• Chabad-Lubavitch in West Asia
• Chabad and Israeli politics
• Kfar Chabad
• Colel Chabad
• Colel Chabad Lubavitch Foundation of Israel
• Yeshivat Shavei Hevron
• Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva
• Torat Hamelekh
• Chabad-Lubavitch timeline

External links

• Lubavitch.com directory: Israel
• Tzeirei Agudat Chabad (chabad.org.il)
• Chabad of Hebron