Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn - Revision history

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Chabad Bot: Add Osipova (2002) OGPU case-file evidence on the 1927 arrest and sentence

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Add Osipova (2002) OGPU case-file evidence on the 1927 arrest and sentence

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Chabad Bot: Add Levin (Kehot 1989) on death sentence and Kostroma exile; Igrot Kodesh corroboration of Zemba letter

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Add Levin (Kehot 1989) on death sentence and Kostroma exile; Igrot Kodesh corroboration of Zemba letter

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← Older revision		Revision as of 13:55, 17 October 2026
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	[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]		[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]
−	~~[[Category:Controversial rabbis\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]~~

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:04, 17 October 2026
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	[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]		[[Category:Chabad-Lubavitch\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]
−	~~[[Category:Chabad\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]~~
	[[Category:Controversial rabbis\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]		[[Category:Controversial rabbis\|Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak]]

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 === The Yevsektsiya ===
-His chief adversary was the [[Yevsektsiya]], the Jewish section of the Bolshevik party. It was led for most of its existence by Semion Dimanstein, "a former student at the Lubavitch yeshiva who had received rabbinical ordination". To the Yevsektsiya, the Rebbe's activities "were anathema".<ref name="HFp78" /> He was "denounced by the Yevsektsiya and marked by the OGPU as a 'foreign agent' running a 'counterrevolutionary network' that imperiled the Soviet state."<ref name="HFp79">Heilman and Friedman, ''The Rebbe'' (2010), p. 79.</ref>
+His chief adversary was the [[Yevsektsiya]], the Jewish section of the Bolshevik party. It was led for most of its existence by Semion Dimanstein, "a former student at the Lubavitch yeshiva who had received rabbinical ordination". To the Yevsektsiya, the Rebbe's activities "were anathema".<ref name="HFp78" /> He was "denounced by the Yevsektsiya and marked by the OGPU as a 'foreign agent' running a 'counterrevolutionary network' that imperiled the Soviet state."<ref name="HFp79">Heilman and Friedman, ''The Rebbe'' (2010), p. 79.</ref> Osipova quotes the Moscow Yevsektsiya leader [[Moishe Litvakov]] complaining that the Rebbe had "организовал всех служителей культа — раввинов, шойхетов, меламедов — во всех концах страны", and threatening: "А мы решили выкорчевать его с корнем" ("And we have decided to uproot him").<ref name="Osipova_p10">Osipova, ''Khasidy'', pp. 10–11 (PDF), citing a 1929 letter published in ''HaTamim'' (Warsaw, 1937), via ''Alef'' (Moscow), no. 484 (1993). This is a Chabad-side source, not the OGPU file.</ref> She also describes how, in early 1927, he negotiated extra funding from an "американского благотворительного фонда" (American charitable fund) for the Council of Rabbis' budget: 40,000 dollars for the second half of the year, used for home-workshop equipment so that observant Jews could keep the Sabbath.<ref name="Osipova_p20">Osipova, ''Khasidy'', p. 20 (PDF) and n. 101. The fund is not named; it is presumably the [[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee]].</ref>
 Chabad hagiography records a confrontation in which an agent pointed a gun at him and said, "This little toy has made many a man change his mind". The Rebbe replied: "That little toy can intimidate only the kind of man who has many gods-passions, and but one world-this world. Because I have only one G‑d and two worlds, I am not impressed by your little toy."<ref name="ChabadBrief" />
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 === Arrest, sentence and release, 1927 ===
 "Near midnight of June 14, 1927," an OGPU detail "headed by two former Lubavitchers" searched his Leningrad flat and arrested him. He was taken to what Lubavitchers called "Shpalerka Prison", probably the Spalernaya prison.<ref name="HFp79" /> His secretary, Chaim Lieberman, burned papers before he too was arrested.<ref name="Millerch4">[[Chaim Miller]], ''Turning Judaism Outward'', Brooklyn: Kol Menachem, 2014, ch. 4 ("Leaving Home, 1927") (Kindle edition).</ref> Miller writes that "Lieberman's Soviet interrogation files state that no incriminatory documents were found."<ref name="Millerch4" /> As he was led away, the Rebbe blessed his infant grandson, Shalom Dovber (Barry) Gourary, "that this child grow to be the greatest of his brothers". Heilman and Friedman read this as a signal about the succession.<ref name="HFp80">Heilman and Friedman, ''The Rebbe'' (2010), p. 80.</ref>
 Whether he was sentenced to death is disputed:
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 * '''Heilman and Friedman.''' They write that he was sentenced to death "according to Lubavitcher versions of the events" and that the condemnation was "if in fact it occurred".<ref name="HFp80" />
 * '''Rapoport's reply.''' [[Chaim Rapoport]] answers: "There is only one account of the arrest, and that is the one that Rayatz himself penned (and subsequently published) in his own personal diary. See Likuttei Dibburim vol. 4, page 1218ff. There are no other 'versions' of this story."<ref name="Rap149">[[Chaim Rapoport]], ''The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Review of 'The Rebbe' by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman'', Oporto Press, 2011, Kindle p. 149 of 197.</ref>
 * '''Levin (Kehot).''' In a Hebrew précis of the committee founded after the Rayatz's release—the material Levin prints as background to the "Vaad Magen uMachseh" for Russian Jewry—he states without qualification that a death sentence was passed and then exchanged for exile:
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 ("Eighteen and a half days I sat in prison, ten days in Kostroma exile, and six weeks in Malakhovka exile.")<ref name="LevinUSSRKostromaSelf">Levin, ''Toldot Chabad b'Russia HaSovietit'' (1989), printed p. קז (207) [= PDF p. 125], quoting Igrot Kodesh vol. 1, letter שלח, of 8 Marcheshvan 5688. Chabad-side Kehot history.</ref>
 A campaign for his release involved:
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 == External links ==
 * [https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3573646/jewish/The-Previous-Rebbe.htm The Previous Rebbe] – Chabad.org
 ==Notes==

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 {{Infobox person
 | name = Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn
-| image = [[File:Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn passport photo.jpg||250px]]
+| image = [[File:Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn passport photo.jpg|250px]]
 | caption = Passport photograph
 | other_names = Joseph Isaac Schneersohn; the Rayatz; the Frierdiker (Previous) Rebbe

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 {{Infobox person
 | name = Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn
-| image = Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn passport photo.jpg
+| image = [[File:Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn passport photo.jpg||250px]]
 | caption = Passport photograph
 | other_names = Joseph Isaac Schneersohn; the Rayatz; the Frierdiker (Previous) Rebbe

@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 R. Simcha did not let up from his work, Heaven forbid. He traveled to the ends of the Caucasus region, where our brethren the Mountain Jews dwell, may G-d be with them. He then journeyed to the city of Derbent, where he found some thirty young students learning under the guidance of a teacher; now, through his tremendous work efforts and with Hashem's help, 360 students learn there today. After four months of continued labor, the secret committee that he established there informs us that they are able to increase the number of those learning to 500. However, in order to pursue this, they need outside assistance; not much aid, merely 150 rubles a month. How painful it is that their meager request cannot be met. The conditions of the place require great care and R. Simcha is in much danger, so he plans to travel on to Kuba, a large city full of G-d-fearing Jews and those who know Torah.
 </blockquote>
-<!-- Editor's note: the letter is given as quoted in Zaltzman (Chabad/Chamah memoir). The Hebrew original should be checked in ''Igrot Kodesh'' of the Rayatz when available; wording here follows Zaltzman's English. -->
+<!-- Editor's note: the English blockquote follows Zaltzman (Kindle pp. 163–165). The Hebrew core of the same account appears as Igrot Kodesh vol. 2, letter 423, quoted in Levin, Toldot Chabad b'Russia HaSovietit (1989), p. ע / PDF p. 88; the full English wording has not been checked against the Igrot text. -->
 === The Yevsektsiya ===
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 * '''Rapoport's reply.''' [[Chaim Rapoport]] answers: "There is only one account of the arrest, and that is the one that Rayatz himself penned (and subsequently published) in his own personal diary. See Likuttei Dibburim vol. 4, page 1218ff. There are no other 'versions' of this story."<ref name="Rap149">[[Chaim Rapoport]], ''The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Review of 'The Rebbe' by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman'', Oporto Press, 2011, Kindle p. 149 of 197.</ref>
 <!-- Editor's note: neither side cites the OGPU case file directly. Miller's footnotes point to Lieberman's file (via Beizer) and to Metzger's English edition of the Rebbe's prison memoir. The primary file has not been seen. -->
 A campaign for his release involved: