Abraham Shemtov
American Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, emissary in Philadelphia from the 1960s, founder of American Friends of Lubavitch and chairman of Agudas Chasidei Chabad
| Abraham Shemtov
| |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 February 1937 Wilno, Poland (White House, 1984); Moscow (COLlive, 2013) |
| Nationality | American |
| Residence | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Rabbi; Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Philadelphia; chairman of Agudas Chasidei Chabad; founder of American Friends of Lubavitch |
| Known for | Chabad's early lobbying in Washington; public Hanukkah menorahs; Education and Sharing Day |
| Children | Levi Shemtov and others |
| Sibling(s) | Berel Shemtov |
Abraham Shemtov (also Avraham, Avrohom or Avremel Shemtov) is an American Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi who has been the movement's emissary in Philadelphia since the 1960s and is chairman of Agudas Chasidei Chabad (AGUCH), the corporation that owns the movement's headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.[1][2] From the 1970s he built Chabad's presence in Washington. He founded American Friends of Lubavitch in 1975 and lobbied Congress for the resolutions that became Education and Sharing Day.[3][4] In 1993 his son Levi Shemtov took over the Washington work.[3]
Heilman and Friedman describe AGUCH, which he chairs, as "the highest post in the movement in the absence of a rebbe". Writing of his work in Washington, they say he "has sharpened his legendary ability to influence people at all levels of government".[5][6]
Early life
The White House announced in 1984 that he was born on 16 February 1937 in Wilno, Poland.[7] A COLlive report of 2013 said instead that he was born in Moscow "to a distinguished Chassidic family", grew up in Tashkent and studied there in an underground cheder.[8] Chaim Miller gives his birth year as 1937.[4] Heilman and Friedman write that his father, Bentzion Shemtov, had been "a devoted Hasid" of Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn and a student at the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva in Russia. His brother Berel Shemtov was also an emissary.[5]
Philadelphia
Lubavitch of Philadelphia says it was "Founded in 1963 by Rabbi Abraham Shemtov and his wife in a small apartment in the Logan neighborhood". It now describes itself as a network of more than 40 centres and institutions.[9] Chabad.org also lists him as director of the first Camp Gan Israel in Parksville, New York, and chairman of the executive board of the Associated Bais Rivka girls' schools in New York.[1]
In 1974 he put up a small menorah beside the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Heilman and Friedman date the practice of Chabad's public Hanukkah menorah lightings from this.[10][11] In 1977, with the help of the Philadelphia Friends of Lubavitch, he enlisted the Polish-American industrialist Edward Piszek to help recover books and manuscripts that Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn had left in Poland. Six crates were returned that year.[12]
Washington
Lobbying and access
Sue Fishkoff writes that he had been "shuttling down to D.C. from his Philadelphia office on a regular basis since the 1970s". American Friends of Lubavitch, which she calls "a prestigious supporters' organization", was "created by his father in 1975".[3] She writes that President Gerald Ford attended its founding ceremony in Philadelphia in 1975, "the first time an American president showed up at a Chabad event". Through the Shemtovs, she adds, Chabad has kept up personal relationships with every president since Ford.[13] He met Jimmy Carter through Carter's domestic policy adviser Stuart Eizenstat. Eizenstat later helped him get permission for the first national menorah in Lafayette Park in December 1979.[13][10]
Fishkoff writes that Shemtov was appointed to an intergovernmental advisory committee on education, as its only religious figure, and spent "hectic months lobbying for congressional support for a Cabinet-level department of education". When the Department of Education was created in 1980 he was a guest of honour at the inauguration.[14] Miller credits him with the 1978 joint resolution that created "Education Day, U.S.A." on the Rebbe's birthday, which every president since Carter has proclaimed.[4] In 1984 Ronald Reagan appointed him to the National Advisory Council on Adult Education. The White House described him as "national director for the American Friends of Lubavitch in Philadelphia".[7]
Heilman and Friedman write that by 1982 he "was running what the papers called a 'well-oiled [political] machine' in Washington". It got Congress to declare the Rebbe's 80th birthday a National Day of Reflection. Shemtov approached lawmakers who had organised Lubavitch communities in their districts, including House Speaker Tip O'Neill, whose chief legislative aide was Ari Weiss. He also told 60 Lubavitch centres in 30 states to get supporters to call their representatives. "Barely a week into the lobbying effort", they write, he had "close to two hundred congressional co-sponsors".[12]
Fishkoff records two cases in which he lobbied directly for Israel. During a shmitta (sabbatical) year in the 1980s, Chabad pushed for an arrangement with the US Department of Agriculture to help Israeli farmers sell produce to Arab countries, with the US government as middleman. Shemtov showed the chief of staff of the Senate Agriculture Committee the biblical passage on the sabbatical year. He told Fishkoff: "Jewish lobbyists couldn't accomplish it ... This was a big savings for Israel." When Senator Frank Lautenberg asked whether he was in the Senate on Soviet Jewry or Israel, Shemtov replied, "I'm here on every issue."[15]
Menorahs and presidents
Fishkoff writes that Carter asked him in 1979 to light every candle on a small ceremonial menorah, against Jewish law for that night, and that the Rebbe was disappointed when he agreed.[10] In 1984 he took the Minnesota emissary Moshe Feller to the Oval Office, where Reagan signed that year's Education Day proclamation.[16] Fishkoff wrote in 2003 that he still led Chabad delegations to the White House "three or four times a year, working in tandem with his son".[15] His son Levi Shemtov told Israel National News in 2024 that Joe Biden "used to travel on the Amtrak with my father once a week, sometimes twice a week", Biden getting off at Wilmington and Shemtov at Philadelphia.[17]
Agudas Chasidei Chabad
Fishkoff names Yehuda Krinsky and Shemtov as the two men who "lead the pack" in institutional control of the movement. She calls Avraham and Levi Shemtov, as heads of the Washington office and directors of American Friends of Lubavitch, the most politically influential figures in Chabad.[18] Menachem Mendel Schneerson's 1988 will named Krinsky as executor and Shemtov and Shalom Simpson as alternates.[19] Heilman and Friedman quote him in 1994, as "the Rebbe's emissary in Washington" and chair of AGUCH, on the mitzvah tank campaign for the Rebbe's recovery: "It takes a lot of courage to participate in this today."[20]
Civil litigation over 770
AGUCH, "now headed by Avremel Shemtov" in Heilman and Friedman's words, owns 770 Eastern Parkway, and has been in long-running civil litigation with the messianist congregation that controls its main synagogue.[2] In a 2020 decision that awarded AGUCH and Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch possession against the congregation, Judge Harriet L. Thompson of the New York City Civil Court noted testimony that "Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky is the Chairman of Merkos and Rabbi Abraham SHEMTOV is the Chairman of Agudas". The decision also describes an exhibit, a letter of 12 June 1987 from the "Committee of Agudas [Union of] Chasidei Chabad" to the Rabbinical Court of Crown Heights, which asked "that nothing should be done at all concerning the Synagogue manager [for example their independent election which undermines our authority]". The court records it as "signed Rabbi Krinsky, Shemtov, Mordechai Mentlik and David Raskin". It also recorded the testimony of a former synagogue manager (gabbai) that in 1995 the managers barred Krinsky and Shemtov from speaking publicly at an AGUCH celebration there.[21] The case was civil and involved no criminal findings.
Public statements
Before the US presidential election of November 2024, Shemtov issued a letter as AGUCH chairman stating that "the Rebbe was emphatic that Chabad Lubavitch does not affiliate with or endorse political parties or candidates, and to avoid the perception of partisanship while involved with public officials".[22] In 2022 the Russian foreign ministry put him, Krinsky and Shlomo Cunin on a list of 963 Americans barred from Russia.[23]
See also
- Levi Shemtov
- American Friends of Lubavitch
- Education and Sharing Day
- Agudas Chasidei Chabad
- Yehuda Krinsky
- Ohel (Chabad)
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chabad.org, Abraham Shemtov Chabad.org, undated author page, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 250.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch, New York: Schocken, 2003, p. 185.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chaim Miller, Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Brooklyn: Kol Menachem, 2014, ch. 13.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 21.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 262.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Appointments, February 28, 1984 Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 28 February 1984, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ COLlive reporter, Native Language Proves Helpful COLlive, 31 May 2013, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Lubavitch of Philadelphia, About Lubavitch of Philadelphia, undated, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, 2003, p. 288.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 181.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 213.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, 2003, pp. 193–194.
- ↑ Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, 2003, p. 192.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, 2003, p. 194.
- ↑ Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, 2003, pp. 195–196.
- ↑ Hadassah Chen, Real Talk: The Rabbi of Capitol Hill tells all Israel National News, 29 December 2024, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, 2003, p. 171.
- ↑ Miller, Turning Judaism Outward, 2014, ch. 14.
- ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 245.
- ↑ Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County, Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States v Congregation Lubavitch, Inc., index nos. 106105/2011 and related, decided 25 April 2020 (Harriet L. Thompson, J.), FindLaw, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Anash.org, Aguch Releases Letter on Chabad's Election Policy Anash.org, 4 November 2024, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Anash.org, Chabad Figures Among 963 Americans Banned by Russia Anash.org, 22 May 2022, accessed 10 November 2026.