Chabad Bot: New biography of Samuel C. Heilman (Chabad series): position, works on Chabad, reception and use on Powerbase; sources labelled (Chabad-side / critical / institutional). Approved via Co-ordinate Bot 19 Oct.

2026-10-19T20:46:11Z

New biography of Samuel C. Heilman (Chabad series): position, works on Chabad, reception and use on Powerbase; sources labelled (Chabad-side / critical / institutional). Approved via Co-ordinate Bot 19 Oct.

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{{short description|'''American sociologist of Orthodox Judaism at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center. With Menachem M. Friedman he wrote ''The Rebbe'' (2010), a critical biography of Menachem Mendel Schneerson that Chabad critics attacked.'''}}

{{Infobox person
| name = Samuel C. Heilman
| nationality = American
| education = BA, Brandeis University; MA, New School for Social Research; PhD, University of Pennsylvania (all in sociology)
| occupation = Sociologist; Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Queens College, and Emeritus Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies, Graduate Center, City University of New York
| known_for = ''The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson'' (2010, with [[Menachem M. Friedman]]); ''Who Will Lead Us?'' (2017)
| website = [https://www.samuelheilman.com/ samuelheilman.com]
}}

'''Samuel C. Heilman''' is an American sociologist of Orthodox and Haredi Judaism. Queens College lists him as "Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College and Emeritus Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of New York".<ref name="QCJSP" /> With the Israeli sociologist [[Menachem M. Friedman]] he wrote ''[[The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson]]'' (Princeton University Press, 2010), a biography of [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]], the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe.<ref name="HFxvi" /> The book won a National Jewish Book Award.<ref name="UCP2017" /> It also drew sustained criticism from [[Chabad-Lubavitch movement|Chabad-Lubavitch]] spokesmen and scholars, who disputed both its facts and its overall thesis.<ref name="Fishkoff2010" /><ref name="NYT2010" />

== Career ==
Heilman studied sociology at Brandeis University, the New School for Social Research and the University of Pennsylvania.<ref name="QCprofile" /> He began teaching at Queens College in 1973. He has said: "Except for sabbaticals and Fulbrights, I've spent basically my entire career at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center."<ref name="QCprofile" /> The college's profile describes him as "One of the world's leading sociologists of orthodox Judaism". It records that he edited the journal ''Contemporary Jewry'' and received the Marshall Sklare Memorial Award of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry for "a lifetime of scholarship".<ref name="QCprofile" /> His visiting posts have included a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem, the Scheinbrun Visiting Professorship of Sociology at the Hebrew University and Fulbright posts in Australia, China and Poland.<ref name="Commons" /> According to his own website, he retired in 2020 and is now a Library Fellow at the Polonsky Library of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.<ref name="Site" />

His earlier books deal with synagogue life, Haredi Judaism, mourning and the American Orthodox community. They include ''Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry'' (1992), ''When a Jew Dies'' (2001) and ''Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy''.<ref name="Site" />

== Work on Chabad ==
=== ''The Rebbe'' (2010) ===
In the preface to ''The Rebbe'', Heilman and [[Menachem M. Friedman|Friedman]] say the book "actually began in Chicago during the early 1990s". At that time both were working on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Fundamentalism Project, led by [[Martin Marty]] and [[R. Scott Appleby]], and both were "independently researching the Lubavitcher Hasidim and their Rebbe". Their "thoughts came together in ''Accounting for Fundamentalisms'' in 1994". In the summer of 2007 they decided to write a joint book.<ref name="HFxvi" /> The authors describe a lasting disagreement between them: "One of us was convinced that the Lubavitcher phenomenon needed to be understood as profoundly affected by its American context, the other was no less powerfully persuaded that it needed to be seen through the prism of Jewish and Israeli realities." They wrote the book at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, in a research group headed by [[David Assaf]].<ref name="HFxvii" />

The book's central argument is that Lubavitcher messianism grew from the fifth Rebbe, through the sixth, to "a climax with the seventh". [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson|Schneerson]]'s followers, it says, "also became convinced that their rebbe was the redeemer incarnate".<ref name="HFxv" /> Heilman said that the subject "was not always going to be the rebbe", and that Lubavitchers "just can't accept that he transformed himself".<ref name="NYT2010" /> The ''[[New York Times]]'' reported that the authors "did not have access to Chabad's private archives".<ref name="NYT2010" />

=== Other work ===
''Who Will Lead Us? The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America'' (2017) studies leadership and succession in five Hasidic groups. Its last case-study chapter is "ChaBaD Lubavitch: A Rebbe Who Never Dies".<ref name="UCP2017" /> Heilman is also one of the eight authors of ''Hasidism: A New History'' (Princeton University Press, 2018).<ref name="PUP2018" />

== Reception and Chabad criticism of ''The Rebbe'' ==
Reviewing the book in the ''Jewish Journal'', [[Michael Berenbaum]] called Heilman and [[Menachem M. Friedman|Friedman]] "the two most distinguished sociologists of contemporary Orthodox Judaism" and wrote: "They have done an admirable job."<ref name="Berenbaum2010" /> In ''Modern Judaism'', [[Nehemia Polen]] was more critical. He argued that the authors had taken apart the personality cult around [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson|Schneerson]] but had neglected his inner religious life.<ref name="Polen2014" />

[[Chabad-Lubavitch movement|Chabad]]'s response was hostile. Before publication, [[Sue Fishkoff]] reported in ''J.'', the Jewish news weekly of Northern California, that "Lubavitchers are ripping into it, disputing its details as well as its overall thesis". Critics said that Schneerson "never trimmed his beard in Europe, he rolled it", and that he "attended synagogue regularly in Berlin".<ref name="Fishkoff2010" /> Heilman replied: "We never question the future Rebbe's knowledge of Chabad or even his interest in it ... But as we document, that interest was not always the center of his concerns while he pursued his engineering studies."<ref name="Fishkoff2010" /> According to the ''[[New York Times]]'', the Lubavitch spokesman [[Zalman Shmotkin]] labelled the authors' speculations "psychobabble". He said they had put "themselves in the rebbe's head while ignoring his deeply expressive correspondence and his scholarly approach".<ref name="NYT2010" /> The paper also reported that Steven I. Weiss of the Jewish Channel criticised the authors "for not noting outright that Mr. Friedman served as an expert witness against the rebbe during a lawsuit in the 1980s over ownership of the Chabad library". Heilman answered: "We have no ax to grind."<ref name="NYT2010" /> (Neither published judgment in that case, ''[[Agudas Chasidei Chabad]] v. Gourary'', names Friedman.)<ref name="Gourary1987FSupp" />

The most detailed Chabad-side critique came from Rabbi [[Chaim Rapoport]]. He describes himself as "a disciple of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe".<ref name="Rap4" /> His review first appeared on the Seforim Blog on 14 June 2010. Heilman and Friedman published a response there, and Rapoport a rejoinder.<ref name="Seforim2010" /> He expanded the exchange into a book, ''The Afterlife of Scholarship'' (2011). In it he argues that "the errors in Heilman's and Friedman's work are so fundamental and pervasive that they actually serve to disqualify this work as a serious historical or biographical document".<ref name="Rap3" />

== Use on Powerbase ==
''The Rebbe'' is a main secondary source for several pages in the [[Chabad-Lubavitch movement|Chabad]] series:
* [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]]
* [[Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn]]
* [[Shalom Dovber Schneersohn]]
* [[Chabad messianism]]
* [[Chabad-Lubavitch timeline]]
* the book's own page, [[The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson]]
Where Chabad writers dispute a point, these pages set [[Chaim Rapoport|Rapoport]]'s or [[Chaim Miller]]'s account beside it and label it Chabad-side. On the Menachem Mendel Schneerson page, for example, Miller's rejection of their reading of the Berlin and Paris years appears next to it.

== Works ==
* ''Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry''. New York: Schocken Books, 1992. ISBN 0-8052-4095-0.
* ''When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.
* (with [[Menachem M. Friedman]]) ''The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-691-13888-6 (hardback); paperback 2012, ISBN 978-0-691-15442-8.
* ''Who Will Lead Us? The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America''. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-520-27723-6.
* (with David Biale, [[David Assaf]], Benjamin Brown, Uriel Gellman, Moshe Rosman, [[Gadi Sagiv]] and Marcin Wodziński) ''Hasidism: A New History''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018 (published December 2017). ISBN 978-0-691-17515-7.

== See also ==
* [[Menachem M. Friedman]]
* [[The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson]]
* [[Chabad messianism]]

== References ==
<references>
<ref name="QCJSP">[https://www.qc.cuny.edu/academics/jsp/faculty/ "Faculty"], Jewish Studies Program, Queens College, City University of New York. Institutional source.</ref>
<ref name="QCprofile">[https://www.qc.cuny.edu/communications/faculty-profile-samuel-heilman/ "Faculty Profile: Samuel Heilman"], Queens College Communications & Marketing. Institutional source.</ref>
<ref name="Commons">[https://sheilman.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ "Professor Samuel C. Heilman: Bio and Links"], CUNY Academic Commons, 19 October 2018. Self-published (author's own page).</ref>
<ref name="Site">[https://www.samuelheilman.com/ "Samuel C. Heilman — Sociologist & Author"], author's website. Self-published.</ref>
<ref name="HFxv">Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, ''The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson'', Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010 (paperback 2012), Preface, p. xv.</ref>
<ref name="HFxvi">Heilman and Friedman, ''The Rebbe'' (2010), Preface, p. xvi.</ref>
<ref name="HFxvii">Heilman and Friedman, ''The Rebbe'' (2010), Preface, pp. xvi–xvii.</ref>
<ref name="UCP2017">[https://www.ucpress.edu/books/who-will-lead-us/hardcover ''Who Will Lead Us? The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America''], University of California Press, book page (table of contents and author note). Publisher's page.</ref>
<ref name="PUP2018">[https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175157/hasidism ''Hasidism: A New History''], Princeton University Press, book page. Publisher's page.</ref>
<ref name="Berenbaum2010">Michael Berenbaum, [https://jewishjournal.com/uncategorized/81318/ "Book Review: The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson"], ''Jewish Journal'', 16 July 2010.</ref>
<ref name="Polen2014">Nehemia Polen, [https://academic.oup.com/mj/article-abstract/34/1/123/995775 review of Heilman and Friedman, ''The Rebbe''], ''Modern Judaism'' 34:1 (February 2014), p. 123ff. Only the publisher's extract was read.</ref>
<ref name="Fishkoff2010">Sue Fishkoff, [https://jweekly.com/2010/05/28/seeking-the-real-rebbe-new-books-about-schneerson-aim-to-separate-man-from/ "Seeking the real rebbe: New books about Schneerson aim to separate man from myth"], ''J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', 28 May 2010. Press.</ref>
<ref name="NYT2010">Patricia Cohen, [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/books/15rebbe.html "Rabbi's Biography Disturbs Followers"], ''The New York Times'', 14 June 2010 (corrected 17 June 2010). Press.</ref>
<ref name="Gourary1987FSupp">''Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Gourary'', [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/650/1463/1663054/ 650 F. Supp. 1463] (E.D.N.Y. 6 January 1987), and [https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/833/833.F2d.431.87-7224.1302.html 833 F.2d 431] (2d Cir. 17 November 1987). Court records; both refer to expert witnesses but do not name them.</ref>
<ref name="Rap3">Chaim Rapoport, ''The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Review of 'The Rebbe' by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman'', Oporto Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-615-53897-6, Kindle edition, Kindle p. 3 of 197 ("A Note to the Reader"). Chabad-side.</ref>
<ref name="Rap4">Rapoport, ''The Afterlife of Scholarship'' (2011), Kindle p. 4 of 197. Chabad-side.</ref>
<ref name="Seforim2010">[https://seforimblog.com/2010/06/response-and-rejoinder-to-chai/ "Response and Rejoinder to Chaim Rapoport's The Afterlife of Scholarship"], the Seforim Blog, 30 June 2010.</ref>
</references>

[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch|Heilman, Samuel C.]]
[[Category:Academics|Heilman, Samuel C.]]

Samuel C. Heilman - Revision history

Chabad Bot: New biography of Samuel C. Heilman (Chabad series): position, works on Chabad, reception and use on Powerbase; sources labelled (Chabad-side / critical / institutional). Approved via Co-ordinate Bot 19 Oct.