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Annual Chabad rabbis’ conference spotlights rise in Jewish engagement as attendees mourn Israel’s dead
(New York Jewish Week) – This year’s conference of Chabad emissaries featured the same highlights that have anchored the past annual gatherings of the Hasidic movement’s rabbis from across the globe.
The thousands of rabbis sat for a panoramic picture in front of the movement’s headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. On Friday morning, they visited the grave of their late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Queens. And on Sunday, as they do every year, they gathered for a massive banquet at a convention center in New Jersey.
But this year much of the conference, planned months ago, had to change on short notice following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war against the terror group in Gaza — down to the time and guest list of Sunday’s gala. The movement’s 1,400 emissaries in Israel tuned in to the meal remotely, and it was moved from the evening to 12:30 p.m. in order to accommodate the time difference.
“We understand the magnitude of the moment and it’s our time to prove to ourselves and to the world that we live and believe,” said Rabbi Moshe Ze’ev Pizem of Chabad of Sderot, an embattled Israeli city on the border with Gaza. Pizem and other Chabad rabbis from the city appeared in a video showing destruction in the city’s streets and the rabbis collecting donations and visiting troops.
“When everything is fine, it’s easy to believe in God. When do we stand the test? When there’s a difficulty, an enormous difficulty,” he said. “Now is the test.”
The gala, which drew 6,500 people this year and is generally meant to be an uplifting celebration of Chabad’s Orthodox Jewish outreach work across the globe, included mournful elements within the festive atmosphere. It featured psalms for the victims of the attack and hostages, whose names scrolled on a screen as the Biblical verses were read aloud by Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot. The Israeli emissaries, related their experiences on the ground in the past month; they gathered in Jerusalem during the dinner in New Jersey.
“We are davening for your release every day,” Helfgot said regarding the hostages, as the screens showed photos of the captives. At least one soldier from the movement was killed in the Oct. 7 attack, and some Chabad members from Brooklyn flew to Israel to serve in their reserve units after the war started.
But alongside the grief, the Chabad representatives, known as shluchim, who hailed from college campuses in North America to the Australian outback, reported an outpouring of Jewish engagement since Oct. 7. According to a survey by Chabad.org that garnered responses from 211 of the movement’s rabbis, 86% reported increased attendance since Oct. 7. The rabbis also overwhelmingly said community members had increased personal religious practice, felt “scared” and felt a stronger connection to other Jews, to Israel and to their own Jewish identity.
“We’ve seen the community has grown more together than ever before. So many people are asking, ‘What can we do?’” said Yossi Swued, rabbi at the Chabad of Western University in Ontario, Canada. “I feel like the whole world is shaking, everyone wants to do something. I think everyone should tap into that.”
The Chabad conference annual gala, in Edison, New Jersey, November 12, 2023. (Luke Tress)
The gala retained its joyful atmosphere: The elaborate event featured multi-colored lights coordinated to music and videos; smoke machines; crane-mounted cameras sweeping over the crowd; musical performances and speeches by Chabad representatives about their local communities. This week’s conference was for the men, while a parallel event for women emissaries will be held in February.
The meal grew especially lively during the traditional “roll call” that announces the numbers of emissaries in each country and again toward the end of the event when the entire room, almost entirely men, gets up to dance in circles. The rabbis swirled around inside a vast hall, hands on each other’s shoulders, as music blasted and colored lights flickered across the crowd. A group hoisted a table in the air, pumping the platform up and down while two men danced on top, waving Israeli flags, and others stood on chairs nearby to film the festivities.
Chabad says there are 5,813 families serving as emissaries in more than 100 countries around the world, from hundreds in places like the United States and France to lone representatives in locales such as Zambia. That reach has put the emissaries on the forefront of the global reaction to the Hamas attack and subsequent surge in antisemitism, both in areas with significant Jewish populations and those without. The emissaries said Jews approached them after the attack to get mezuzahs for their homes, attend services for the first time or study Torah.
Rabbi Menachem Aron, who serves rural Australia, said a Jewish man contacted him to request a new pair of tefillin after the attack, since the phylacteries were not available in the remote region where he lives.
“He’s 16 hours north of Perth, absolute middle of nowhere, but he knows that he can stay connected even during these times,” Aron said, adding that Australian Jews were grappling with antisemitism in both the city and more remote regions.
“We’re angry but we’re not scared,” he said. “People want to increase their Judaism. They want to put on tefillin, they want to light the Shabbat candles.”
Rabbi Aryeh Long of Camarillo, California, called the moment an “awakening” in his community. A man who lives near his Chabad center had never attended services before Oct. 7, but now comes in every day to pray. The man is an Israel Defense Forces veteran who served in the 1967 Six Day War and in recent weeks started doing volunteer guard duty at the Chabad preschool, Long said.
In El Paso, Texas, Rabbi Levi Greenberg said he received a call days after the attack from a local woman, who said, “Rabbi, I want to put up mezuzahs in my house. How quickly can we do it?”
“I ran over with some mezuzahs and right away we put them up,” he said. “People want to be more connected.”
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The post Annual Chabad rabbis’ conference spotlights rise in Jewish engagement as attendees mourn Israel’s dead appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really?
JNS.org – If I asked you to name the most famous line in the Bible, what would you answer? While Shema Yisrael (“Hear O’Israel”) might get many votes, I imagine that the winning line would be “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). Some religions refer to it as the Golden Rule, but all would agree that it is fundamental to any moral lifestyle. And it appears this week in our Torah reading, Kedoshim.
This is quite a tall order. Can we be expected to love other people as much as we love ourselves? Surely, this is an idealistic expectation. And yet, the Creator knows us better than we know ourselves. How can His Torah be so unrealistic?
The biblical commentaries offer a variety of explanations. Some, like Rambam (Maimonides), say that the focus should be on our behavior, rather than our feelings. We are expected to try our best or to treat others “as if” we genuinely love them.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in his classic text called the Tanya, argues that the actual feelings of love are, in fact, achievable provided that we focus on a person’s spirituality rather than how they present themselves physically. If we can put the soul over the body, we can do it.
Allow me to share the interpretation of the Ramban (Nachmanides), a 13th-century Torah scholar from Spain. His interpretation of the verses preceding love thy neighbor is classic and powerful, yet simple and straightforward.
“Do not hate your brother in your heart. You shall rebuke him, but do not bear a sin because of him” by embarrassing him in public. “Do not take revenge, and do not bear a grudge against your people. You shall love your fellow as yourself, I am God” (Leviticus 19:17-18).
What is the connection between these verses? Why is revenge and grudge-bearing in the same paragraph as love your fellow as yourself?
A careful reading shows that within these two verses are no less than six biblical commandments. But what is their sequence all about, and what is the connection between them?
The Ramban explains it beautifully, showing how the sequence of verses is deliberate and highlighting the Torah’s profound yet practical advice on how to maintain healthy relationships.
Someone wronged you? Don’t hate him in your heart. Speak to him. Don’t let it fester until it bursts, and makes you bitter and sick.
Instead, talk it out. Confront the person. Of course, do it respectfully. Don’t embarrass anyone in public, so that you don’t bear a sin because of them. But don’t let your hurt eat you up. Communicate!
If you approach the person who wronged you—not with hate in your heart but with respectful reproof—one of two things will happen. Either he or she will apologize and explain their perspective on the matter. Or that it was a misunderstanding and will get sorted out between you. Either way, you will feel happier and healthier.
Then you will not feel the need to take revenge or even to bear a grudge.
Here, says the Ramban, is the connection between these two verses. And if you follow this advice, only then will you be able to observe the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor. If you never tell him why you are upset, another may be completely unaware of his or her wrongdoing, and it will remain as a wound inside you and may never go away.
To sum up: Honest communication is the key to loving people.
Now, tell me the truth. Did you know that not taking revenge is a biblical commandment? In some cultures in Africa, revenge is a mitzvah! I’ve heard radio talk-show hosts invite listeners to share how they took “sweet revenge” on someone, as if it’s some kind of accomplishment.
Furthermore, did you know that bearing a grudge is forbidden by biblical law?
Here in South Africa, people refer to a grudge by its Yiddish name, a faribel. In other countries, people call it a broiges. Whatever the terminology, the Torah states explicitly: “Thou shalt not bear a grudge!” Do not keep a faribel, a broiges or resentment of any kind toward someone you believe wronged you. Talk to that person. Share your feelings honestly. If you do it respectfully and do not demean the other’s dignity, then it can be resolved. Only then will you be able to love your fellow as yourself.
May all our grudges and feelings of resentment toward others be dealt with honestly and respectfully. May all our grudges be resolved as soon as possible. Then we will all be in a much better position to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The post Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday dismissed as nonsensical the report that President Donald Trump would endorse Palestinian statehood during his tour to the Persian Gulf this week.
“This report is nonsense,” Huckabee harrumphed on his X account, blasting the Jerusalem Post as needing better sourced reporting. “Israel doesn’t have a better friend than the president of the United States.”
Trump is set to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The leader’s first trip overseas since he took office comes as Trump seeks the Gulf countries’ support in regional conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and curbing Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
However, reports citing administration insiders claimed that Trump has also set his sights on the ambitious goal of expanding the Abraham Accords. These agreements, initially signed in 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The accords are widely held to be among the most important achievements of the first Trump administration.
The post ‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Unless significant progress is registered in Sunday’s round of nuclear talks with Iran, the US will consider putting the military option back on the table, sources close to US envoy Steve Witkoff told i24NEWS.
American and Iranian representatives voiced optimism after the previous talks that took place in Oman and Rome, saying there was a friendly atmosphere despite the two countries’ decades of enmity.
However the two sides are not believed to have thrashed out the all-important technical details, and basic questions remain.
The source has also underscored the significance of the administration’s choice of Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director, as the lead representative in the nuclear talks’ technical phases.
Anton is “an Iran expert and someone who knows how to cut a deal with Iran,” the source said, saying that the choice reflected Trump’s desire to secure the deal.
The post US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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