Machne Israel
Chabad-Lubavitch central organisation founded in 1940 by Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, now described by Chabad as its social-services arm
| Machne Israel
| |
|---|---|
| Type | Religious organisation; one of the three central corporations of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement |
| Founded | 20 October 1940 (Heilman and Friedman); Chabad sources give 1941 |
| Founder(s) | Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn |
| Registration ID | EIN 11-6042675 (US Internal Revenue Service, exempt since January 1951) |
| Headquarters | 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11213 |
| Location | Brooklyn, New York |
| Key people | Menachem Mendel Schneerson (head from the 1940s); Yehuda Krinsky (chairman); Shmaya Krinsky (executive director, Machne Israel Development Fund) |
| Website | https://www.lubavitch.com/headquarters/machne-israel/ |
Machne Israel (also Machne Yisrael or Mahane Yisrael, Hebrew for "Camp of Israel") is one of the three central corporations of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, alongside Agudas Chasidei Chabad and Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch.[1] The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, founded it in New York during the Second World War as a vehicle for his call for immediate repentance and redemption, and gave it to his son-in-law Menachem Mendel Schneerson to run.[2][3]
Chabad now describes Machne Israel as the movement's "social-services arm".[4] Its main public activity today is the Machne Israel Development Fund, a donor pool that funds Chabad emissaries. The fund was relaunched in Manhattan in September 2026 with a new "Israel Pillar Fund for critical needs in Israel".[5] As a religious organisation it files no public Form 990 returns, so its finances are not disclosed.[6]
Founding and wartime messianism
Heilman and Friedman date the founding to 20 October 1940, seven months after Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn arrived in New York. They describe Machne Israel as "an organization that would further his messianic mission". Quoting an earlier study, they write that it "thought of itself as a religious safety zone protected from the Hurban [destruction], a Biblical 'Goshen'… It believed it could end the Hurban through religious activity and bring about the redemption (Geula)."[2] In the same period the Rebbe taught that only if Jews kept the Sabbath and the dietary laws, and men put on tefillin, "would the plague be ended and the redemption come".[2] Chabad.org gives the founding year as 1941.[7] The IRS lists the corporation's tax exemption from January 1951.[6]
Heilman and Friedman write that the sixth Rebbe modelled Machne Israel as "a social service arm of his network" on Latvian Jewish organisations, and later brought in Chaim Hodakov, who had run several of them, to help.[8] Its publication in the United States was Hakriah Ve-Hakedushah ("The Calling and the Holiness").[9]
Chaim Miller writes that Yosef Yitzchak created three organisations for Menachem Mendel Schneerson to direct: Machne Israel, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch and Karnei Hod Torah. Machne Israel was "aimed at practically implementing Rayatz's call of le-alter le-teshuvah, le-alter le-geulah" ("immediately to repentance, immediately to redemption"), a slogan built into its logo.[3] It recruited observant Jews who were not necessarily Chabad Hasidim. Their membership "dues" were to persuade less observant adult Jews to take on four good deeds a month, in kashrut, Sabbath, tefillin and family purity. Membership was kept confidential. A 1943 mission statement set the aim of influencing "their families, their business acquaintances and the members of their synagogues".[3] Schneerson and his father-in-law added branches for Sabbath observance, youth, psalm recital, visiting the sick, Torah classes for working men and Jewish farmers. From 1942 to 1945 Schneerson held an annual celebration at 770 for those who had learnt the Mishnah by heart.[3][7]
Ehrlich writes that the Machne Israel journal propagated messianic predictions in the 1940s. The historian Naftali Loewenthal told him that Schneerson was not behind them, because the language of Schneerson's own notes from the period differs from the journal's. Ehrlich replies that it is likely that Schneerson's rhetoric about his father-in-law "fell on the receptive ears of Mahane Yisrael's initiates, and thereby spread through the Habad movement".[10] In June 1944, writing "in his role as head of Mahane Israel", Schneerson set out the meaning of tefillin, the practice he later made the first of his mitzvah campaigns.[11]
Under Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Miller writes that Machne Israel became inactive within a few years of the war's end. It "still existed as an organization on paper", and Schneerson sometimes signed formal letters as its director.[3] Schneerson's control of Machne Israel and Merkos, which were small next to the yeshiva and Agudas Chasidei Chabad run by his rival Shemaryahu Gourary, built his following among the movement's young men before the 1951 succession, according to Ehrlich.[12] At a meeting in 1950, after his father-in-law's death, Schneerson said he relied on his predecessor's power "for the successful operation of Machne Yisrael and Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch", citing new work for the children of North Africa.[7]
Ehrlich records that "Schneerson used Mahane Yisrael to purchase property for the movement".[13] His glossary also lists a "Lishkat Hashayin ('Secret Service')", described as a "Department of the Mahane Yisrael organization which dealt with discreet issues, from politically sensitive matters to charity".[9] No other source examined describes this department.
Corporate control after 1988
After his wife's death in February 1988, Schneerson asked his secretary Yehuda Krinsky to have lawyers review the corporate papers of Agudas Chasidei Chabad, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch and Machne Israel, "to make sure that any vacancies on the boards be filled".[1] Sue Fishkoff reports that the papers of all three were redrawn between 1988 and 1990, with Schneerson as president, Hodakov as vice-president, Nissen Mindel as treasurer and Krinsky as secretary.[14] An unsigned draft will of August 1988, whose validity Krinsky disputes, would have left Machne Israel to be run by Hodakov, Mindel and Krinsky.[15]
| Name | Role | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Menachem Mendel Schneerson | Head / director; president | 1940s–1994 | Miller; Heilman and Friedman; Fishkoff[3][14] |
| Chaim Hodakov | Vice-president | from 1988 | Fishkoff[14] |
| Nissen Mindel | Treasurer | from 1988 | Fishkoff[14] |
| Yehuda Krinsky | Secretary; later chairman | from 1988; chairman by 2025 | Fishkoff; Chabad.org[14][4] |
| Shmaya Krinsky | Executive director, Machne Israel Development Fund | 2026 | Lubavitch.com[5] |
Machne Israel Development Fund
Lubavitch.com says the Machne Israel Development Fund was set up by Schneerson in 1984 "to serve as a major financial resource of the Chabad-Lubavitch institutional network". It was formed by "a core of prominent Jewish philanthropists".[16] A 2026 report on the same site says it was "founded and named by the Rebbe in 1985" and that the Rebbe was its first donor.[5] Krinsky called it "the last fundraising project the Rebbe established". He said Chabad headquarters had turned to "more conventional fundraising" after 1994 and was reviving the fund as the "Machne Israel/Lubavitch Development Fund".[1] Ehrlich quotes Krinsky as saying the movement raised over $200 million in a single year, a figure Ehrlich calls "very difficult to verify".[13]
The relaunch lunch on 3 September 2026 was held at the Glass House overlooking Bryant Park. It was hosted by Steve Rosenberg, founder and chief executive of Greystone. The renewed fund named four priorities:[5]
- early childhood education;
- emergency help for Chabad emissaries and communities in crisis;
- a "Frontier Fund" for small and remote communities;
- an "Israel Pillar Fund for critical needs in Israel".
Mordechai and Naomi Gutnick pledged $1 million. Chagit Leviev Sofiev, president of Leviev Companies USA and daughter of Lev Leviev, spoke about her father's meetings with the Rebbe. Rabbi Levi Wolff of Sydney's Central Synagogue placed the event "in the context of the aftermath of the Bondi massacre".[5]
Chabad headquarters' website lists three bodies under Machne Israel: the fund, Colel Chabad (which the site describes as among the oldest Jewish charitable foundations, established in 1788) and Mivtza Taharas Hamishpocho International, the family-purity campaign.[17]
Status
The IRS records Machne Israel Inc (EIN 11-6042675) at 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. ProPublica notes that it is "not required to submit tax filings because the IRS designates it as a religious organization".[6] Agudas Chasidei Chabad and Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch also file no Form 990s, so the income of all three central corporations is undisclosed.
See also
- Agudas Chasidei Chabad
- Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch
- Yehuda Krinsky
- Chabad emissaries
- Mitzvah campaigns
- Chabad messianism
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Baila Olidort, In Conversation: Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky Lubavitch.com, interview first published 2009, republished 17 June 2026, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 145.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Chaim Miller, Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Brooklyn: Kol Menachem, 2014, ch. 9.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Menachem Posner and Dovid Margolin, 6,500 Chabad Rabbis Gather for Largest Jewish Conference in World Chabad.org, 16 November 2025, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Tzemach Feller, Machne Israel Development Fund Relaunches With New Generation of Supporters Lubavitch.com, 3 September 2026, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 ProPublica, Machne Israel Inc Nonprofit Explorer, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Menachem Mendel Schneerson, tr. Uri Kaploun, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch & Machne Israel Must Not Falter Chabad.org, talk of 26 Sivan 5710 (1950), accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 83.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 M. Avrum Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn: Understanding Lubavitch Hasidim Past and Present, Jersey City: KTAV, 2004, glossary, pp. 286–287.
- ↑ Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn, 2004, pp. 92–93 n. 3.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, pp. 183–184.
- ↑ Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn, 2004, p. 38.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn, 2004, p. 136 n. 1.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch, New York: Schocken, 2003, p. 262.
- ↑ Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn, 2004, pp. 246–247.
- ↑ Lubavitch.com, Machne Israel Development Fund Lubavitch.com, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Lubavitch.com, Machne Israel Lubavitch.com, accessed 10 November 2026.