Naftali Loewenthal
British scholar of Hasidism at University College London, author of Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School (1990), and himself a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and director of Lubavitch UK's Chabad Research Unit
| Naftali Loewenthal | |
|---|---|
| Image | |
| Born | Haifa |
| Died | |
| Nationality | British |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | Associate Professor (Teaching), Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London; Director, Chabad Research Unit (Lubavitch UK), from 1985 |
| Known for | Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School (1990); Hasidism Beyond Modernity (2019) |
| Parents | |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | |
| Sibling(s) | |
| Education | University College London (Hebrew Literature and Jewish History, 1968–71; PhD on Hasidism, 1981) |
| Predecessor | |
| Website | chabadresearch.net |
Naftali (Tali) Loewenthal is a British scholar of Hasidism and Jewish spirituality. University College London (UCL) lists him as an Associate Professor (Teaching) in its Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies.[1] He wrote Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School (University of Chicago Press, 1990), a study of the first two generations of Chabad thought.[1][2] He is also an insider. UCL's profile says that he and his wife "are both active members of the Chabad-Lubavitch educational movement". Since 1985 he has directed the Chabad Research Unit, a branch of Lubavitch UK.[1][3]
Career
According to UCL, Loewenthal was "Born in Haifa" and "brought up in London, attending Hackney Downs School". He studied Hebrew Literature and Jewish History at UCL from 1968 to 1971, "followed by a PhD on Hasidism (1981)".[1] He teaches part-time in the department, with modules on Hasidism and Modernity, Maimonides, Jewish philosophy and rabbinic eschatology.[1][4] The publisher of his second book calls him a Teaching Fellow at UCL.[5]
Chabad affiliation
Loewenthal's own UCL profile states his link to the movement. It says that he and his wife "are both active members of the Chabad-Lubavitch educational movement". It lists two non-academic posts: "Director, Chabad Research Unit, Lubavitch UK" (from 1985) and Head of Religious Studies Teaching at the Lubavitch Senior Girls' School in London (from 1973).[1] The Chabad Research Unit describes itself as "an independently funded branch of LubavitchUK", set up in 1985 "to explore ways of communicating the essence of Jewish teaching in today's world". It names Menachem Mendel Schneerson as the Rebbe "whose teachings inspire the work of the Chabad Research Unit".[3] Readers should bear this affiliation in mind. His books are academic works, the first published by a university press, but their author belongs to the movement he studies.
Work on Chabad
Communicating the Infinite (1990) traces how Shneur Zalman of Liadi and his successor, Dovber Schneuri, turned Hasidic mystical teaching into a system that could be communicated to ordinary Hasidim. It covers the transmission and editing of the early discourses, the split with Aharon of Staroselye, and Dovber's leadership.[2] Loewenthal argues, for example, that Dovber "took the group under his leadership through a further stage of development".[6] He calls Dovber's 1826 tract to the governor of Vitebsk "a unique document in the history of Hasidism: a Hasidic tract addressed to a non-Jew".[7] The book was reviewed in Sociological Analysis in 1991.[8]
Hasidism Beyond Modernity: Essays in Habad Thought and History (Littman Library, 2019) collects new and revised essays. They cover Chabad outreach, women's activism, attitudes to non-Jews, messianism and graveside prayer, and the movement after Schneerson's death. Chapter titles include "Habad Messianism: A Combination of Opposites" and "Habad, the Rebbe, and the Messiah in the Twenty-First Century".[5]
Other scholars draw on his work. David Berger lists Communicating the Infinite and Loewenthal's article "The Neutralization of Messianism and the Apocalypse" among the main secondary works on Chabad's "history and messianic orientation".[9] Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman cite "Naftali Loewenthal ... in his study of the emergence of the ChaBaD school of Hasidism" on how a rebbe communicates his teaching.[10] The Chabad-side biographer Chaim Miller relies on Loewenthal's account, based on an eyewitness, of a 1955 farbrengen at which Schneerson spoke of a mystical visitation.[11]
Use on Powerbase
Communicating the Infinite is a main secondary source for these pages:
- Dovber Schneuri, on his early life, succession, teaching, works, arrest, Karlsbad journey and death
- Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (Tzemach Tzedek)
- Shmuel Schneersohn
- Tanya
- Chabad-Lubavitch timeline
Because of his Chabad affiliation, statements that rest only on Chabad tradition as he reports it should be treated with care. Where he reports such a tradition, the pages attribute it to that tradition.
Works
- Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. 336 pp. ISBN 0-226-49045-9.
- "The Neutralization of Messianism and the Apocalypse", in Rachel Elior and Joseph Dan (eds.), Kolot Rabim: Memorial Volume to Rivkah Shatz-Uffenheimer, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 13. Jerusalem, 1996, pp. 2*–14* (English section).
- Hasidism Beyond Modernity: Essays in Habad Thought and History. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization (Liverpool University Press), 2019. 456 pp. ISBN 978-1-906764-70-8 (hardback); paperback 2025, ISBN 978-1-83553-996-5.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Tali Loewenthal", profile page, University College London. Institutional source (profile maintained by the subject).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Naftali Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, esp. chs. 3–6, pp. 67–145. Scholarly source by a Chabad-affiliated author.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "About", Chabad Research Unit. Chabad-side.
- ↑ "Tali Loewenthal: Teaching", University College London. Institutional source.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hasidism Beyond Modernity: Essays in Habad Thought and History, Liverpool University Press / Littman Library, book page (hardback 18 December 2019). Publisher's page.
- ↑ Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite (1990), p. 137.
- ↑ Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite (1990), p. 143.
- ↑ Review of Communicating the Infinite, Sociological Analysis 52:2 (1991), pp. 216–217. The review itself was not read.
- ↑ David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, London and Portland, Oregon: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, ch. 1, p. 4 n. 1. Critical source.
- ↑ Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010 (paperback 2012), p. 57.
- ↑ Chaim Miller, Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Brooklyn: Kol Menachem, 2014, ch. 11 ("At the Court of the 7th Rebbe, 1951–1964") (Kindle edition; no print page numbers). Chabad-side.