View source for Lubavitch Youth Organization

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{{short description|'''Chabad-Lubavitch outreach organisation in New York (Tze'irei Agudas Chabad, "Tzach"), founded in 1955; organiser of the mitzvah tanks, campus programmes and the Fifth Avenue menorah'''}}
{{Infobox organization
| name            = Lubavitch Youth Organization
| native_name     = Tze'irei Agudas Chabad (Tzach)
| logo            =
| type            = Religious non-profit; recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service as a church (not required to file Form 990)
| founded         = {{Start date|1955}}
| founder         = [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]]
| registration_id = EIN 13-4101112 (IRS ruling June 2000)
| headquarters    = 1408 President Street, Brooklyn, New York 11213
| location        = Crown Heights, Brooklyn
| key_people      = [[Dovid Raskin]] (chairman; died 2011); [[Shmuel Butman]] (director; died 2024); Yossi Butman (director from 2024)
| parent_organization = [[Machne Israel]] (per JTA, 1996)
| services        = Outreach campaigns; [[Mitzvah campaigns|mitzvah tanks]]; campus weekends; public menorahs and sukkahs; ''L'Chaim'' weekly
}}
The '''Lubavitch Youth Organization''' (LYO), in Hebrew '''Tze'irei Agudas Chabad''' and known by its initials as '''Tzach''', is the Chabad-Lubavitch body that runs the movement's street and public outreach in the New York area. [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]] set it up in 1955, on the model of a youth body he had founded earlier in Israel.<ref name="Miller11">Chaim Miller, ''Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson'', Brooklyn: Kol Menachem, 2014, ch. 11.</ref> It organised the first [[Mitzvah campaigns|mitzvah tanks]] in 1974 and the giant menorah on Fifth Avenue from 1977.<ref name="Lightstone2017">Mordechai Lightstone, [https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/3698889/jewish/Mobilizing-the-Mitzvah-Tanks-The-Untold-Story-of-the-Are-You-Jewish-Guys.htm Mobilizing the Mitzvah Tanks: The Untold Story of the 'Are You Jewish?' Guys] ''Chabad.org'', 7 June 2017, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref><ref name="Posner2024">Menachem Posner, [https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/6527208/jewish/Rabbi-Shmuel-Butman-81-Raised-the-Jewish-Profile-in-New-York-and-Beyond.htm Rabbi Shmuel Butman, 81, Raised the Jewish Profile in New York and Beyond] ''Chabad.org'', 25 July 2024, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref> For most of its history its public face was its director, [[Shmuel Butman]], who also led the International Campaign to Bring Moshiach. In 1996 he described the LYO as "the outreach arm of the Lubavitch movement, which means that everything that has to do with outreach goes through the Lubavitch Youth Organization".<ref name="JTA1996a">Jewish Telegraphic Agency, [https://www.jta.org/archive/was-moshiach-promoter-fired-debate-rages-over-lubavitch-post Was 'moshiach' Promoter Fired? Debate Rages over Lubavitch Post] ''Jewish Telegraphic Agency'', 14 February 1996, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref>

== Founding ==
Chaim Miller, a Chabad biographer of the Rebbe, writes that one of Schneerson's "first priorities" as Rebbe was "to galvanize the Chabad youth". He did this through Tze'irei Agudat Chabad, "first in Israel in 1952, and in America, in 1955". [[Joseph Telushkin]]'s chronology dates the Israeli body to 1951 and the American one to 1955.<ref name="Miller11" /><ref name="Telushkin">Joseph Telushkin, ''Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson'', New York: HarperWave, 2014, chronology, entries for 1951 and 1955.</ref> Miller says the organisation was aimed at young Hasidim who had left yeshiva and were working, and that the Rebbe "perceived young Chasidim as a potential army that could be galvanized in the service of Judaism". When he proposed the American branch on a Sabbath in spring 1955, he said: "My intention is not merely to add another organization with its own stationery and honorary officers ... but that there should be activities."<ref name="Miller11" />

According to ''A Chassidisher Derher'', a Chabad magazine, a meeting that night chose a temporary committee of [[Dovid Raskin]], Avrohom Zvi Landa, Berel Baumgarten and Moshe Pesach Goldman. The first activity, on Lag BaOmer a few days later, sent members to local synagogues to urge study of Hasidic texts. The magazine quotes the Rebbe as telling a follower: "My ''zahir tefei'' is Tzeirei Agudas Chabad", using a phrase for the observance a person is most careful about.<ref name="Derher2019">''A Chassidisher Derher'', [https://derher.org/wp-content/uploads/84-Av-5779-the-story-of-Tzach-in-the-USA.pdf The Story of Tzach in the USA] ''A Chassidisher Derher'', no. 84, Av 5779 (August 2019), pp. 30–41, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref> Raskin, a Soviet-born teacher at the Lubavitch yeshiva, died in 2011. ''Derher'' calls him chairman "from the day it was founded"; Chabad.org says he was a founding board member and "later was appointed as its chairman". It adds that most of his posts were unpaid, and that he later sat on the boards of [[Agudas Chasidei Chabad]], [[Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch]] and [[Machne Israel]].<ref name="Zaklikowski2011">Dovid Zaklikowski, [https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/1522716/jewish/Longtime-Lubavitch-Youth-Leader-Passes-Away.htm Longtime Lubavitch Youth Leader Passes Away] ''Chabad.org'', 17 May 2011, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref> [[Shmuel Butman]] joined the staff in 1966 and recalled being its second employee.<ref name="Posner2024" />

== Campaigns ==
=== Campuses and synagogues ===
Board member Pesach Goldman told Chabad.org: "We decided that our first activity would be to go to college campuses and bolster Jewish life there." The organisation also distributed hand-made matzah before Passover, ran Sukkot campaigns and visited patients in hospital on festivals.<ref name="Zaklikowski2011" /> From the 1960s it held Shabbat weekends on campuses, "usually at the invitation of the local Hillel", and then brought students to Crown Heights for weekends called the ''Pegisha'' ("encounter") with the Rebbe.<ref name="Derher2019" /> The LYO also published ''Wellsprings'', a magazine aimed at college youth, and ''The Tzach Directory'' (1987).<ref name="Morris1998">Bonnie J. Morris, ''Lubavitcher Women in America: Identity and Activism in the Postwar Era'', Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998, notes and bibliography.</ref>

=== Menorahs and tanks ===
When Schneerson launched the Hanukkah campaign in 1973, Raskin organised cheap tin menorahs. Chabad.org says 60,000 were made in the first year.<ref name="Zaklikowski2011" /> ''Derher'' gives a figure of ten thousand made "within a few days".<ref name="Derher2019" />

Chabad.org says that after the Ma'alot attack in May 1974 yeshiva students went to the LYO, "the organization responsible for the tefillin mobiles", for money to rent trucks. "Up to seven Hertz trucks at a time were rented by Lubavitch Youth Organization." The Rebbe named them "our tanks against assimilation" when a ''New York Times'' reporter was due at 770.<ref name="Lightstone2017" /> ''Derher'' writes that as the campaigns grew they "morphed into individual institutions—such as Tzivos Hashem, Mivtza Neshek, the Mitzvah Tank office", all resting on Tzach.<ref name="Derher2019" />

=== Public Judaism in New York ===
In 1977 Butman put up a giant menorah at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, lit by Mayor [[Abe Beame]]. Chabad.org says every New York mayor has attended since. The present 32-foot menorah was designed by [[Yaacov Agam]].<ref name="Posner2024" /> In December 2025 Yossi Butman and Velvel Butman, the LYO's development director, officiated at its 48th season.<ref name="Anash2025">Anash.org, [https://anash.org/worlds-largest-menorah-shined-brighter-than-ever/ World's Largest Menorah Shined Brighter Than Ever] ''Anash.org'', 24 December 2025, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref> The LYO also organises a communal sukkah outside New York City Hall.<ref name="QJL2025">Shabsie Saphirstein, [https://queensjewishlink.com/index.php/local/26-community-corner/13142-faith-and-unity-under-the-sukkah-at-city-hall Faith And Unity Under The Sukkah At City Hall] ''Queens Jewish Link'', 22 October 2025, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref>

In Albany it runs the annual state version of [[Education and Sharing Day]]. ''The Jewish Press'' reported in 2018 that the LYO had obtained a proclamation every year since 1995 of "the equivalent days of learning for every year the Rebbe would have been old". Butman opened legislative sessions with a prayer "for which he is offered a stipend from each house".<ref name="Gronich2018">Marc Gronich, [https://jewishpress.com/albany-beat-20/ Albany Beat – March 30, 2018] ''The Jewish Press'', 28 March 2018, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref> In 2022 Assemblyman David Weprin sponsored the resolution for the 120th anniversary of Schneerson's birth after Butman gave the daily invocation.<ref name="Weprin2022">David I. Weprin, [https://www.assembly.state.ny.us/write/upload/member_files/024/pdfs/20220427_0101732.pdf Newsletter, April 2022] ''New York State Assembly'', accessed 10 November 2026.</ref>

== Status and money ==
The Internal Revenue Service lists Lubavitch Youth Organization (EIN 13-4101112) at 1408 President Street, Brooklyn, "% Shmuel Butman", with a ruling date of June 2000. Its foundation code is 10 ("Church 170(b)(1)(A)(i)") and its filing code is 06 ("990 - Not required to file (church)").<ref name="IRSBMF">Internal Revenue Service, [https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/eo_ny.csv Exempt Organizations Business Master File Extract, New York] (downloaded 20 October 2026), with codes from the [https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/eo-info.pdf data dictionary], accessed 10 November 2026.</ref> It therefore publishes no Form 990, and its income, assets and salaries are not public. The only figures found are gifts recorded in donors' returns. JTA reported in 2017 that the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave $6,750 "to the Lubavitch Youth Organization in Brooklyn" in 2008.<ref name="JTA2017">Marcy Oster, [https://www.jta.org/2017/01/10/politics/report-trump-kushner-foundations-have-donated-thousands-to-chabad Report: Trump, Kushner foundations have donated thousands to Chabad] ''Jewish Telegraphic Agency'', 10 January 2017, accessed 10 November 2026.</ref>

''Derher'' says the LYO bought a house at President and Kingston for student activities. The owner, a doctor, asked $10,000, far below its market value of $120,000, and the money came as a cash loan from Rabbi Hodakov, given after he had consulted the Rebbe.<ref name="Derher2019" />

JTA reported in 1996 that the LYO "falls under the purview of" one of the two Chabad umbrella bodies. [[Yehuda Krinsky]], as a director of [[Machne Israel]], was "technically Butman's boss".<ref name="JTA1996a" />

== Messianism and the 1996 dismissal letter ==
Under Butman the LYO was closely tied to the campaign to proclaim Schneerson the Messiah. [[Rachel Elior]] describes Butman as "the director of the Lubavitch youth organization and chairman of the international Moshiach campaign".<ref name="Elior1998">Rachel Elior, "The Lubavitch Messianic Resurgence: The Historical and Mystical Background 1939–1996", in Peter Schäfer and Mark Cohen (eds), ''Toward the Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco'', Leiden: Brill, 1998.</ref> In February 1996 the LYO board sent him a letter of dismissal. JTA reported the reasons given: despite repeated warnings he had not submitted "reports of income and expenses for the last two years", and he had used the LYO's fax and phone lines for messianic campaigning. One board member said he had been fired and another said he had not. Butman said the dispute was settled on 12 February and that he would keep the LYO's work "completely separate" from the campaign.<ref name="JTA1996a" /> [[Sue Fishkoff]] writes that he "refused to step down" because he "had developed his own private funding sources and his own board of directors".<ref name="Fishkoff267">Sue Fishkoff, ''The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch'', New York: Schocken, 2003, p. 267.</ref> The dispute was internal; no court case or regulatory action has been found.

== After Butman ==
Butman died in July 2024.<ref name="Posner2024" /> In 2025 his son Yossi Butman was described as "Director of Chabad Lubavitch Youth Organization".<ref name="QJL2025" />

== See also ==
* [[Shmuel Butman]]
* [[Mitzvah campaigns]]
* [[Machne Israel]]
* [[Chabad messianism]]
* [[Education and Sharing Day]]
* [[Tzivos Hashem]]

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch|Lubavitch Youth Organization]]
[[Category:Hasidism|Lubavitch Youth Organization]]
[[Category:United States|Lubavitch Youth Organization]]
[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch organisations|Lubavitch Youth Organization]]