Mitzvah campaigns
Chabad-Lubavitch outreach drives (mivtzoim) begun by Menachem Mendel Schneerson to get Jews to perform ten commandments, including the tefillin campaign and the mitzvah tanks
| Mitzvah campaigns (mivtzoim)
| |
|---|---|
| Type | Religious outreach campaign |
| Start date | June 1967 |
| Location | Worldwide; Israel Defense Forces bases and front lines in Israel and occupied territory |
| Organisers | Menachem Mendel Schneerson; Lubavitch Youth Organization; Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch; Chabad emissaries |
| Other | Mitzvah tanks from 1974 |
The mitzvah campaigns (Hebrew mivtzoim, singular mivtza) are the outreach drives through which the Chabad-Lubavitch movement asks Jews, usually strangers in public places, to perform a single commandment on the spot. The best known are the tefillin campaign, launched by Menachem Mendel Schneerson shortly before the Six-Day War of June 1967, and the "mitzvah tanks", converted trucks and mobile homes used since 1974. Their volunteers ask passers-by "Excuse me, are you Jewish?"[1][2]
Chabad presents the campaigns as a response to assimilation. Its own history calls the vehicles "tanks against assimilation".[3] The sociologist Samuel Heilman and the historian Menachem Friedman read them as a bid to take messianic initiative back from the Israel Defense Forces after the 1967 conquests. They argue that the Rebbe set out to show "that Lubavitchers, and not the Zionist state of Israel, would lead to the end of history".[4] From the start, the tefillin campaign was also directed at Israeli soldiers. It has been carried to army bases and front lines in every war since 1967, including the Gaza war that began in October 2023.[5][6]
The ten campaigns
Telushkin writes that the Rebbe believed "for a Jew largely uninvolved in the performance of the commandments, the journey to God begins with the performance of a single mitzvah", and that a commandment kept by an otherwise non-observant Jew still has value. He calls that view "highly atypical in the Orthodox world of the 1960s and 1970s".[2] By 1974 the Rebbe was promoting five campaigns: Jewish books in the home, Torah study, mezuzahs, charity and tefillin.[3] These grew into ten.[2][4]
- tefillin for men and boys over 13;
- Sabbath candles for women and girls (the Neshek campaign);
- mezuzahs on every doorway of a Jewish home;
- daily Torah study;
- charity;
- a home library of Jewish books;
- kosher food;
- love of one's fellow Jew;
- Jewish education;
- family purity and use of the mikveh.
Chabad's headquarters lists Mivtza Taharas Hamishpocho International, the family-purity campaign, under Machne Israel.[7] The roots of the tefillin campaign go back to June 1944, when Schneerson, then head of Machne Israel, wrote on the meaning of tefillin. In a 1951 letter he advised a petitioner to check the family's mezuzahs, give charity before candle-lighting and see that "your sons should put on tefillin daily".[1][8]
The tefillin campaign and the 1967 war
Telushkin's timeline says the Rebbe started the tefillin campaign "during the tense period preceding the Six-Day War" as an "extra merit" for Jews, "particularly Israel's soldiers". Lubavitchers went to army bases in Israel to get soldiers to put on tefillin. After the war they set up at the Western Wall in the occupied Old City of Jerusalem, where Ariel Sharon, Ezer Weizman and Bob Dylan were among those who put on tefillin. Telushkin cites a Boston Globe report of 24 November 1967 that more than 400,000 men had done so at least once. On 7 May 1968 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency gave a figure of more than a million.[5]
Norton Mezvinsky and Joshua Kolb write that the Rebbe claimed that Israeli soldiers wearing tefillin had frightened the Arab soldiers. After 1967 he "emphasized the need for increased settlement" and sent emissaries to Israel with that message.[9] Heilman and Friedman put it this way: "In place of the Israeli army he would send his shluchim to do the work."[10] In 1972 the Rebbe sent 200 Lubavitch "soldiers" to the Egyptian front and the occupied Golan Heights to put tefillin on Israeli troops. His emissary Hershel Hecht said "tefillin gives strength to soldiers and provides them with spiritual protection".[11][9] In the closing days of the 1973 war the Rebbe asked Israeli representatives at 770 why the army had not taken Damascus, and sent that counsel to the defence minister, Moshe Dayan, through the Knesset member Zevulun Hammer.[12]
Mitzvah tanks
A Merkos "mobile library" bus with a space for tefillin ran in the Bronx from 1962–63. Shlomo Cunin took a trailer version to Los Angeles in 1965, and in 1968 the New York Times reported on a "Tefillin-Mobile" in Washington Square Park.[3][1] According to Chabad.org, after the Ma'alot hostage killings of May 1974 students from the Lubavitch Youth Organization rented Hertz trucks for the summer. When a New York Times reporter was due at 770, the Rebbe told his secretary Yehuda Krinsky "Tell him these are our tanks against assimilation." The trucks carried signs reading "Identify!" and "Help Israel, Help Yourself".[3][5] A separate Chabad.org history describes the first tanks in Manhattan that year as rented vans "of the 'U-Haul' or 'Ryder' variety", carrying "a dozen young men with beards and black hats" and posters reading "Mitzvot On The Spot For People On The Go". Students stopped passers-by with "Excuse me, sir ... Are you Jewish?" and offered men tefillin. Women were offered a Shabbat candle kit. The vans were later replaced by mobile homes. Chabad.org quotes the Rebbe in 1974: "A tank is undeterred by trenches and pits and simply crosses them to reach the other side."[13]
Chabad.org says the military name "was intentional". It quotes a 1982 letter in which the Rebbe denied that the Torah glorifies militarism.[3] Heilman and Friedman read it differently: "In 1974, again seeking to usurp the charisma of the Israeli army, the mitzvah campaigns were carried to the public by mitzvah tanks." The Rebbe "wanted an alternative army to the Zionist one", and believed the tanks "would be more successful than the Israeli army tanks in their wars in bringing about the messianic age".[12][14] In 1977 Hasidim at 770 chanted "soldiers of our righteous Messiah who will lead us with his tanks to our land with the campaigns and the ammunition in our possession". The Hebrew word for ammunition, neshek, is also the name of the candle campaign.[15]
Chabad.org reports that during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon mitzvah tanks "received special military dispensation" to visit IDF units in Beirut. It quotes Benjamin Netanyahu as recalling that "when Chabad came, they lifted my spirits, the spirits of my soldiers".[3] A convoy of 90 tanks marked the Rebbe's 90th birthday in 1992, weeks after his stroke.[16] Heilman and Friedman argue that the later "Moshiach campaign essentially revealed the ultimate purpose of the mitzvah campaign".[17]
Chabad Lubavitch Mitzvah Tank
One New York tank operator files public accounts. Chabad Lubavitch Mitzvah Tank (EIN 11-3304063), care of Rabbi Levi Baumgarten at 1444 President Street, Brooklyn, has been tax-exempt since July 1996.[18] Chabad.org says Baumgarten has run a daily mitzvah tank since 1989.[3] Its officers are Rabbi Levi Baumgarten (executive director), Leah Baumgarten (director), Howard Messing (treasurer) and James Fellus (trustee).[18]
| Tax year | Total revenue | Of which contributions | Total expenses | Net assets at year end | Officer compensation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $577,890 | $550,939 | $464,298 | $1,387,858 | $66,000 |
| 2020 | $580,589 | $558,705 | $532,845 | $1,435,335 | $16,500 |
| 2021 | $549,114 | $543,333 | $272,745 | $3,010,804 | $0 |
| 2022 | $484,441 | $498,050 | $413,486 | $3,081,519 | $58,000 |
| 2023 | $527,508 | $521,976 | $414,778 | $3,193,959 | $48,000 |
| 2024 | $621,745 | $590,909 | $415,298 | $3,400,407 | $48,000 |
Figures for 2024 are from the return filed on 10 March 2025.[18]
The Israeli army since 2023
Chabad says its tefillin stands and mitzvah tanks now operate from Tel Aviv to the Australian outback.[3] The campaign remains closely tied to the Israeli military. In October 2023, as reservists were called up for the war on Gaza, Chabad.org reported that emissaries were helping soldiers "put on tefillin" at three Chabad centres serving troops: Eilat, Metula and Hebron. Hebron is in the occupied West Bank. The rabbi of Chabad of Eilat said of the soldiers, "These are soldiers who are training to go into the most dangerous parts of Gaza. So we help them put on tefillin."[6] Danny Cohen, director of Chabad of Hebron, and the other three Chabad rabbis in the city were themselves on reserve duty in IDF uniform. Their yeshiva students helped reservists around Hebron "don tefillin".[6] On 8 October 2023 COLlive published photographs of two yeshiva students "on Shlichus in Chevron" helping soldiers put on tefillin "just before they head out onto the front lines".[19]
See also
- Chabad emissaries
- Public menorahs
- Tzivos Hashem
- Chabad messianism
- Chabad of Hebron
- Chabad in occupied Palestine
- Machne Israel
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 184.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Joseph Telushkin, Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History, New York: HarperWave, 2014, ch. 4, "The Ten Campaigns".
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Mordechai Lightstone, Mobilizing the Mitzvah Tanks: The Untold Story of the 'Are You Jewish?' Guys Chabad.org, 7 June 2017, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 170.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Telushkin, Rebbe, 2014, ch. 30, "Major Events in the Life of the Rebbe: A Timeline".
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Bruria Efune, Chabad Centers Near IDF Bases Provide Lifelines for Soldiers Headed to War Chabad.org, 10 October 2023, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Lubavitch.com, Machne Israel Lubavitch.com, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 183.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Norton Mezvinsky and Joshua Kolb, "Eyes Upon the Land: Chabad Lubavitch on Israel", Religious Studies and Theology 32.1 (2013), pp. 11–12, doi:10.1558/rsth.v32i1.7.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, pp. 187–188.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 189.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 190.
- ↑ Shloma Majeski, 1974: The Mitzvah Tank Chabad.org, article 62178, undated, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 175.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 208.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 239.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 252.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 ProPublica, Chabad Lubavitch Mitzvah Tank Nonprofit Explorer, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ COLlive, Chabad Bochurim Arm IDF Soldiers With Tefillin COLlive, 8 October 2023, accessed 10 November 2026.