Menachem Mendel Schneerson
For the third Chabad Rebbe of the same name, see Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (Tzemach Tzedek). Seventh Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch (1902–1994), who built the movement into a global network and became the focus of a messianic campaign
| Menachem Mendel Schneerson | |
|---|---|
| Image | |
| Born | 14 April 1902 (11 Nissan 5662) Nikolaev, Russian Empire |
| Died | 12 June 1994 (3 Tammuz 5754) Beth Israel Medical Center, Manhattan, New York |
| Nationality | American (formerly Russian) |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | |
| Known for | Seventh Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, 1950/51–1994 |
| Parents | |
| Spouse(s) | Chaya Mushka Schneerson (m. 1928; d. 1988) |
| Children | |
| Sibling(s) | |
| Education | University of Berlin; Sorbonne, Paris |
| Predecessor | Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn |
| Website | |
Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), known to his followers as "the Rebbe", was the seventh and last leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty. He led it from his father-in-law's death in 1950 until his own in 1994.[1] According to the New York Times, he was a "Russian-born, Sorbonne-educated scholar who took an insular Hasidic group that almost came to an end with the Holocaust and turned it into one of the most influential and controversial forces in world Jewry".[2]
From 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he built a worldwide network of emissaries (shluchim) and Chabad Houses. He campaigned to promote the Seven Noahide Laws among non-Jews, which earned him repeated tributes from US presidents and a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal.[3] He never visited Israel, but he wielded considerable influence in Israeli politics, opposing territorial withdrawal and backing the "Who is a Jew" amendment.[4]
His final years were dominated by an intense messianic campaign among his followers, many of whom proclaimed him the Messiah. Some still do, three decades after his death. The Orthodox historian David Berger called this "a revolutionary development" that had "thoroughly undermined" a pillar of Judaism.[5]
Early life
Schneerson was born on 11 Nissan 1902 in Nikolaev in southern Russia (now Mykolaiv, Ukraine). His father was the kabbalist Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson and his mother Chana Schneerson. He was named after his ancestor, the third Rebbe, Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch.[1] Chabad's official biography records that his father was later sent into internal exile "by the Soviets to a remote village in Asian Russia".[1] UPI gave his civil date of birth as 14 April 1902.[6]
Berlin and Paris
In 1928, in Warsaw, Schneerson married Chaya Mushka, daughter of the sixth Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. In 1927 she had accompanied her father into his "forced exile to Kostroma".[1] He then "studied in the University of Berlin and then at the Sorbonne in Paris".[1][2] Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman's academic biography covers these years in the chapters "Coming of Age in a Time of Transition" and "Entering the Court of Lubavitch".[7]
Escape to the United States, 1941
Schneerson and his wife escaped occupied France and arrived in New York on 23 June 1941.[1] The 1994 Act of Congress describes him as "a refugee first from Stalinist Russia and then from Nazi Germany".[3] After his arrival he was put in charge of three central Lubavitch organisations: Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch (education), the Kehot Publication Society and the social-services agency Machne Israel.[1]
Succession, 1950–51
Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn died in 1950. Chabad says his son-in-law then "reluctantly ascended to the leadership of the Lubavitch movement".[1] UPI dates his leadership from 1950, "nine years after coming to Brooklyn".[6] He formally accepted the role in 1951.[5]
Outreach: shlichus and the mivtzoim
Under Schneerson, "Lubavitch centers and Chabad Houses were opened in dozens of cities and university campuses around the world".[1] Writing in 2001, Berger cited a journalist "basing himself on official sources" who reported "more than 2,600 institutions throughout the world, with 3,700 married couples serving as emissaries". He added that "Even if the numbers are exaggerated, there is no question that the worldwide Chabad presence continues to grow at a stunning rate".[5] Berger also reported claims that "Chabad rabbis constitute 50 percent of the rabbinate in England" and that 13 of Sydney's 26 synagogues were led by Chabad rabbis.[5] Sue Fishkoff's The Rebbe's Army (2003) gives a journalistic account of the emissary system.[8] One of the most visible campaigns was the drive to print the Tanya in every place where Jews live, discussed on that page.
The Noahide campaign and American politics
Schneerson urged non-Jews to observe the Seven Noahide Laws, and US presidents took up the theme. In Proclamation 4921 (3 April 1982), Ronald Reagan declared a "National Day of Reflection" for the Rebbe's 80th birthday. The proclamation praised the Lubavitch movement as "one shining example for people of all faiths of what education should be" and said the Rebbe "has provided a vivid example of the eternal validity of the Seven Noahide Laws".[9] In 1985 Congress (H.J.Res. 186) designated his birthday "Education Day, U.S.A.". Reagan's proclamation stated that "Very few Americans have done more to promote these ethical values" and tied them to "their roots in the Seven Noahide Laws".[10] By 1994 the Act of Congress noted that his birthday had been marked "in each of the last 16 years as 'Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A.'".[3]
Israel
Territorial maximalism
Although he never visited Israel, Schneerson insisted that no territory captured in 1967 be given up. In correspondence with the British Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, he wrote:[11]
"I am completely and unequivocally opposed to the surrender of any of the liberated areas currently under negotiation, such as Yehudah and Shomron, the Golan, etc., for the simple reason, and only reason, that surrendering any part of them would contravene a clear ruling found in Shulchan Aruch…"
He presented the position as a matter of pikuach nefesh (saving life), "not" of "the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael, or with days of Moshiach".[11] A Chabad publication records that during the Camp David negotiations he "expressed the strongest protest". It calls the return of Sinai to Egypt "a grave and tragic mistake" and attacks the "land for peace" concept as applied to "Yehudah and Shomron" (the West Bank).[12] JTA reported that his "decades-long position has been that Israel should not surrender 'one inch' of territory".[4]
Elections, coalitions and "Who is a Jew"
- 1988. The Christian Science Monitor reported that in the last two weeks of the September 1988 campaign "a weakened Agudat Israel party turned to the rebbe for support. With his endorsement they won an unexpected five seats".[13] JTA wrote that "The Chabad movement, headed by Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson… has effectively taken control of Agudat Yisrael in Israel". Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had promised the ultra-Orthodox parties "swift passage" of the "Who is a Jew" amendment to the Law of Return, which would have refused recognition to non-Orthodox conversions.[14] The proposal provoked a mass lobbying effort by American Jewish leaders.[15]
- 1990. Two Agudat Yisrael Knesset members withdrew from Shimon Peres's planned Labor coalition "after learning he opposed Labor's stance favoring talks with the Palestinians to swap land for peace".[13] Reform leader Rabbi Alexander Schindler said: "Rabbi Schneerson, sitting in his study on (Brooklyn's) Eastern Parkway, decided that Agudat Yisrael would not participate in the proposed government."[4]
Israeli politicians
The Jewish News Syndicate notes that "Israeli leaders of all stripes continually sought out his advice and blessing". These included Benjamin Netanyahu, filmed receiving a blessing and political advice in 1988, and Ariel Sharon, whom the Rebbe "convinced… to remain" in the army.[16]
Russia and the Soviet Union
Schneerson's family background, his father's Soviet exile and his father-in-law's 1927 exile all tied him to the Soviet experience.[1] Berger describes the Chabad underground's "heroic stand, fought for decades in lonely isolation… against a totalitarian Soviet regime".[5]
The library case
After his death, Chabad's legal arm, Agudas Chasidei Chabad, sued Russia in the United States for the return of the "Schneerson Collection". The collection consists of a library of "12,000 books and manuscripts the Soviets seized between 1917 and 1925" and an archive of "25,000 pages" seized by the Nazis and later by Soviet forces. On 16 January 2013 Chief Judge Royce Lamberth held Russia in civil contempt and imposed sanctions of "$50,000 per day".[17][18] See Agudas Chasidei Chabad v. Russian Federation.
Post-Soviet legacy
Berger records that 17 of the most important Chabad emissaries in the former Soviet Union, among them the new chief rabbi Berel Lazar, had signed a 1997 ruling that Jews must accept Schneerson's messiahship.[5] On the Kremlin alliance of Lazar's Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, see Galina Zelenina.[19]
Messianism
Berger gives a detailed account of how Schneerson presented the coming of the Messiah. According to Berger, he "unqualifiedly proclaimed the imminence of the redemption" and "encouraged the cry, 'We want moshiah now!'". He "strongly implied that he would be the redeemer", for example by teaching that "the messiah's name was Menachem" and that the Third Temple would first appear next to 770 Eastern Parkway.[5] Berger adds that "the message was not unequivocal". In his last years Schneerson "tolerated and even appears to have encouraged" the singing of Yechi Adoneinu ("May our Master, Teacher, and Rabbi the King Messiah live forever"), while at other times he criticised messianist publications.[5] Heilman and Friedman title a chapter "From Resurrection to Death: We Want Moshiach Now".[7] Elliot R. Wolfson calls him "a radical messianic visionary who promoted a conservative political agenda".[20]
Crown Heights, 1991
In August 1991 a car in the Rebbe's motorcade struck and killed seven-year-old Gavin Cato. Days of violence between Black and Jewish residents followed, during which the Australian Jewish student Yankel Rosenbaum was fatally stabbed.[21][22] A state inquiry led by Richard Girgenti, commissioned by Governor Mario Cuomo, found Mayor David Dinkins and the police "at fault in letting unrest escalate".[23][24] See Crown Heights riot.
Illness and death
On 2 March 1992, while praying at his father-in-law's grave, Schneerson suffered a stroke that "paralyzed his right side" and left him unable to speak.[1] He had another stroke on 10 March 1994.[25] He died at 1:50 a.m. on 12 June 1994 at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, aged 92.[26] He left no children and named no successor. The Washington Post reported that "Even as his pine coffin was placed in the hearse, a panicked crowd of Lubavitch faithful chanted prayers for Schneerson to rise and reveal himself to be the Messiah".[27]
Posthumous cult and honours
- Congressional Gold Medal. Public Law 103‑457 (2 November 1994) authorised a gold medal "in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contributions toward world education, morality, and acts of charity". It credited him with making Chabad's New York headquarters "a center of over 2,000 educational, social, and rehabilitative institutions".[3]
- The Ohel. His grave in Queens, next to that of his father-in-law, has become a place of pilgrimage. The New York Times reported that tens of thousands came for the 20th anniversary of his death in 2014.[28] Chabad reported more than 50,000 visitors in the week of the 32nd anniversary in 2026.[29]
- Continuing messianism. Berger reports that "a growing number of messianists began to assert that the Rebbe never died". A 1997 ruling obliging Jews to accept his messiahship had 150 signatories by January 2000. Some messianist publications went further and spoke of him as divine, for example by substituting "Creator" for "Rabbi" in Yechi.[5]
Controversies and critics
- Messianism. Berger argued that by accepting messianists as Orthodox Jews in good standing, "We award victory to Christianity in a crucial aspect of its millennial debate with Judaism". He won a 1996 Rabbinical Council of America resolution that "there is not and never has been a place in Judaism" for a messiah who dies before completing his mission.[5][30]
- Haredi opposition. Rabbi Elazar Shach of Bnei Brak, the leading Lithuanian (Litvish) authority, had long-standing theological and political conflicts with Schneerson. According to the 1988 Israeli election study, Shach's circle characterised the messianist position as "blasphemy".[31] Berger also notes the "delegitimation of messianists" in Shach's community.[5]
- Interference in Israeli politics. Reform and secular Israeli critics accused him of "meddling". Schindler asked: "How can a religious leader in good conscience reject the idea of moving toward peace when the young men in his own movement are exempted from military service…?"[4]
- Jews and non-Jews.' On his letters and remarks about the Tanyas doctrine of non-Jewish souls, including his refusal to soften it in English translation, see Tanya#Teachings on non-Jews. Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky discuss Chabad within Haredi fundamentalism.[32]
- Crown Heights. See above.
Scholarship and biographies
- Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton, 2010). The first academic biography, and controversial within Chabad.[7]
- Joseph Telushkin, Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History (Harper, 2014). A popular biography sympathetic to the movement.[33]
- Chaim Miller, Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Kol Menachem, 2014). Draws on internal archives.[34]
- David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (Littman, 2001).[30]
- Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret (Columbia, 2009).[20]
- Avrum M. Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn (Ktav, 2004).[35]
- Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army (Schocken, 2003).[8]
See also
- Chabad-Lubavitch movement
- Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn
- Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (Tzemach Tzedek)
- 770 Eastern Parkway
- Agudas Chasidei Chabad
- Tanya
- Chabad in occupied Palestine
- Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia
- Failed Messiah
- The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson
External links
- The Rebbe – Chabad.org
- Public Law 103‑457 – Congress.gov
Notes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Chabad.org, The Rebbe: A Brief Biography Chabad.org, accessed 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ari L. Goldman, Rabbi Schneerson Led A Small Hasidic Sect To World Prominence The New York Times, 13 June 1994.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 United States Congress, H.R. 4497: An Act to award a congressional gold medal to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson Public Law 103‑457, 2 November 1994, 108 Stat. 4799.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Rebbe's Influence Blamed for Labor's Failure to Form Governing Coalition JTA, 1990.
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 David Berger, The Rebbe, the Jews, and the Messiah Commentary, September 2001.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 United Press International, Lubavitcher leader dead at age 92 UPI Archives, 12 June 1994.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch, New York: Schocken Books, 2003.
- ↑ Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 4921 – National Day of Reflection Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 3 April 1982.
- ↑ Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 5317 – Education Day, U.S.A., 1985 The American Presidency Project, 4 April 1985.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Extracts from Correspondence Between the Lubavitcher Rebbe… and Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits Regarding the Halachic Position of the Areas Liberated after the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars in When Silence is a Sin, Appendix D, Sichos in English.
- ↑ Chabad.org, Peace in the Land Chabad.org, accessed 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Christian Science Monitor, How a Rabbi in US Influences Israeli Politics CSMonitor.com, 3 May 1990.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Support for 'Who Is a Jew' Wavering in Likud and NRP JTA, 24 November 1988.
- ↑ Ari L. Goldman, 'Who Is a Jew?' Debate in Israel Attracts Leading Figures of U.S. Judaism The New York Times, 3 December 1988.
- ↑ Jewish News Syndicate, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994) JNS, accessed 14 October 2026.
- ↑ United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Russian Federation, Civ. No. 05‑1548 (RCL), Memorandum Opinion 16 January 2013 (915 F. Supp. 2d 148).
- ↑ Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States, Motion for Entry of Interim Judgment ($14,750,000) US District Court for the District of Columbia, January 2014.
- ↑ Galina Zelenina, "Our Community is the Coolest in the World": Chabad and Jewish Nation-Building in Contemporary Russia Contemporary Jewry, 2018, pp. 1–31.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
- ↑ The New York Times, A Boy's Death Ignites Clashes in Crown Heights The New York Times, 21 August 1991.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Fatal Brooklyn Traffic Accident Sparks Widespread Racial Violence JTA, August 1991.
- ↑ The New York Times, Crown Heights Study Finds Dinkins and Police at Fault in Letting Unrest Escalate The New York Times, 21 July 1993.
- ↑ New York State, Report to the Governor on the Disturbances in Crown Heights (Girgenti Report), Vols I–II, 1993, Office of Justice Programs abstract.
- ↑ Los Angeles Times, Rabbi Schneerson, Lubavitcher Leader, Dies Los Angeles Times, 12 June 1994.
- ↑ David Firestone, Thousands Gather in Crown Hts. To Grieve for Their Grand Rabbi The New York Times, 13 June 1994.
- ↑ Laurie Goodstein, Death of Lubavitcher Leader, Rabbi Schneerson, Stuns Followers The Washington Post, 13 June 1994.
- ↑ The New York Times, Commemorating 20th Anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson's Death The New York Times, 2 July 2014.
- ↑ Chabad.org, More Than 50,000 Visiting Rebbe's Queens Resting Place This Week Chabad.org, 2026.
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001.
- ↑ Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds), The Elections in Israel – 1988 Boulder: Westview (reissued Routledge), preview.
- ↑ Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel London: Pluto Press, 1999 (new ed. 2004).
- ↑ Jewish Book Council, Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson Jewish Book Council, accessed 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Jewish Book Council, Turning Judaism Outward Jewish Book Council, accessed 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Avrum M. Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn: Understanding Lubavitch Hasidism Past and Present Jersey City: Ktav, 2004.