Chabad Lubavitch of Italy
Chabad-Lubavitch in Italy: the Milan mission founded by Gershon Mendel Garelik in 1958, the Merkos school and Merkos l'Inyonei Chinuch Italia, centres in Rome, Venice, Florence, Bologna, Trieste and other cities, disputes with other Jewish groups, and a 2017 meeting between a Chabad rabbi and the Pope
| Chabad Lubavitch of Italy
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| Type | Jewish religious organisation (Chabad-Lubavitch) |
| Founded | December 1958 |
| Founder(s) | Gershon Mendel Garelik and Bassie Garelik |
| Headquarters | Milan |
| Location | Via Poerio 35, Milan (office of Chabad Italia) |
| Area served | Italy |
| Services | Synagogues, schools, summer camps, kosher supervision, publishing, youth and student programmes |
| Key people | Gershon Mendel Garelik (executive director until his death in 2021) |
| Website | https://www.chabad.it |
| Remarks | Its legal body, Merkos l'Inyonei Chinuch Italia, was given legal personality by presidential decree in 1979 |
Chabad Lubavitch of Italy (Chabad Italia) is the Chabad-Lubavitch network in Italy. It grew from a mission to Milan that Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, sent in 1958 and that was led for more than sixty years by Rabbi Gershon Mendel Garelik.[1][2] Chabad Italia lists centres in Bologna, Camaiore, Como, Florence, Milan, Rome, Trieste, Valenza, Venice and Verona.[1]
History
Milan
According to Chabad Italia, a Rabbi Gansburg worked in Milan as an early emissary and ritual slaughterer (shochet). Carlo Zippel then asked the Rebbe to send a permanent emissary (shliach), and Gershon Mendel and Bassie Garelik arrived in December 1958. Rabbi Moshe Lazar followed the next year and worked on the school and the Gan Israel summer camp, and in 1961 Rabbi Yeshua Hadad came to serve the Sephardic community and oversee kosher standards.[1]
Lubavitch.com, the website of Chabad's world headquarters, says in its 2021 obituary of Garelik that he was born in the Soviet Union in 1932, married Basya Posner in 1958 and was sent to Milan less than a year later. It says Chabad in Milan grew to six centres and a publishing house, and that "some forty Chabad representatives serve the city's ten thousand Jews". It also credits him with founding the Rabbinical Centre of Europe and a kosher supervision agency. He died on 13 February 2021, aged 88.[2]
The Merkos school in Milan says it was founded at the end of the 1950s by Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, and that in May 1979 its Italian body, Merkos l'Inyonei Chinuch Italia, was given legal personality by a decree of President Sandro Pertini. Its first premises were in Via Poerio; the school is now at Via delle Forze Armate 61, Milan.[3]
Chabad Italia says that in 1980 Rabbi A. Hazan set up the Lubavitch Youth Organization and the Enzo Modena centre in Milan, followed by Beith Menachem in 1994; he became director of the Merkos school in 1996 and rabbi of the Ohel Yaakov synagogue in 2008. In 1983 Rabbi Shaikevitz, husband of Sola Garelik, founded Beit Chabad Milano in Via Luigi Soderini, with a yeshiva and the Beth-Hanna seminary for women. Igal Hazan, Bechor, Levi Hazan and Yoseph Hadad arrived in Milan in 1995.[1]
Rome
According to Chabad Italia, Rabbi Eliahu Ouazanna came to Rome in 1963 at the request of the city's chief rabbi, Elio Toaff. In 1976 Rabbi Itzchak Hazan set up an official Chabad presence in Rome, at first working with refugees from the Soviet Union. In 1987 he put up a public Chanukah menorah in Piazza Barberini, with Toaff's support. Shalom Hazan and Ronnie Canarutto opened Chabad houses in Rome in 2000, and Menachem and Rivkie Lazar opened Chabad Piazza Bologna in December 2008.[1]
Other cities
Chabad Italia says Rabbi Borenstein went to Bologna in 1975. Rabbi A. Hazan opened the Beit Chabad in the Ghetto of Venice in 1995, and Rabbi Rami Banin settled in Venice in the early 1990s and opened the Gam Gam kosher restaurant there.[1] In Trieste, Rabbi Ariel Haddad became chief rabbi of the city's Jewish community in 2003 and directed its Jewish museum; he resigned in May 2022 to become chief rabbi of the Jewish Association of Slovenia (see Chabad Lubavitch of Slovenia).[1]
Size
The Merkos school says Chabad today has 23 emissaries (shluchim) in Italy, with centres in Milan, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Trieste and Venice.[3] Lubavitch.com's 2021 obituary of Garelik gives a different picture for Milan alone: "some forty Chabad representatives".[2] Neither source explains the difference. Chabad headquarters lists centres in Bologna, Florence, Milan, Rome, Trieste and Venice.[4]
Relations with other Jewish groups
Venice (2005)
In 2005 Jason Burke reported in The Observer that Chabad's growth in Venice had caused tension with the city's small Jewish community. Up to 300 people came to a free kosher dinner run by Chabad, almost as many as the local community; the chef, Liav Kohen, said of local Jews: "They don't like it too much… They feel a bit swamped." Burke reported that Chabad's Venice office handed out leaflets on "the integrity of the land of Israel", had opened a kindergarten and had put a menorah on a gondola. Banin, Chabad's emissary in Venice, said "people are just scared of something new" and that "we will eventually blend into one Jewish community in Venice." The article reported similar tensions elsewhere, including Italy as a whole, and discussed messianism in the movement.[5]
Milan lobster dispute (2010)
In 2010 Rabbi Shlomo Bekhor, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi in Milan, sent an email to his followers alleging that lobster had been served at the Passover seder of Lev Chadash, Milan's progressive Jewish community. Lev Chadash's president, Ugo Volli, and its rabbi, Haim Fabrizio Cipriani, denied this. They asked for the rabbinical court (Bet Din) to be convened and for damages, writing to Milan's chief rabbi, Alfonso Arbib, that Bekhor's claim was a lie that seriously defamed them, and sought €5,000 to be given to charity.[6] In September 2010 Moked reported that Bekhor, described as "affiliated with the Lubavitch movement", had apologised before Yom Kippur, saying he had been "badly informed". Lev Chadash accepted the apology and the proceedings lapsed.[7]
Beit Hatalmud petition (2018)
In September 2018 Israel National News reported that a petition had been filed with a court in Milan seeking the closure of the Chabad synagogue Beit Hatalmud. The petition relied on a Lombardy law, passed about a decade earlier and aimed at limiting mosques, that requires 250 parking spaces for each religious institution. The report quoted Rabbi Moshe Shaykevitz. No report of the outcome has been found.[8]
Vatican
In May 2017 a delegation led by Rabbi Edgar Gluck, chief rabbi of Galicia, met Pope Francis at the Vatican for 45 minutes to discuss Jewish cemeteries, unity and child sexual abuse. The delegation included Rabbi Dovber Pinson, a Chabad emissary who directed Chabad of Carroll Gardens in New York and the Iyyun Center. CrownHeights.info reported that critics cited talks by the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in 1974 and 1987 that condemned such visits, the second calling one the "father of fathers of impurity". It later reported that the listing for Chabad of Carroll Gardens had been removed.[9]
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that after a video showed the delegation singing with the Pope, Pinson apologised in a letter. He wrote that the singing had begun "spontaneously without my foreknowledge or consent" and "It is my deep regret that this video was released", while still calling the meeting a kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God's name).[10]
Centres
Chabad Italia gives its office address as Via Poerio 35, Milan.[1] The Merkos school is at Via delle Forze Armate 61, Milan.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 "About Chabad Italia", Chabad Italia, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Pioneer Chabad Emissary Rabbi Gershon Mendel Garelik, 88", Lubavitch.com (Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters), 14 February 2021.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "The history", Scuola del Merkos, Milan, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ "Italy – Centers", Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters (lubavitch.com), accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Jason Burke, "Jews split by a messianic message", The Observer, 18 September 2005.
- ↑ "La guerra degli ebrei per le aragoste", Moked, 1 August 2010.
- ↑ "Qui Milano – Aragosta, colpo di scena e pace a sorpresa", Moked, 19 September 2010.
- ↑ "Petition filed against Milan synagogue", Israel National News, 12 September 2018.
- ↑ "Rabbis and Activists Visit the Pope", CrownHeights.info, 8 May 2017.
- ↑ "Rabbi seen in video with pope apologizes after Orthodox critics raise objections", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 10 May 2017.