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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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Israeli Defense Firm Lands Huge Deal With Germany
An Elbit Systems Ltd. Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is seen at Elbit’s drone factory in Rehovot, Israel, June 28, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Orel Cohen
On Monday, Elbit Systems Ltd., a military contractor based in Israel, announced it had received a $260 million government contract from Germany to spend six years installing Directional Infrared Counter Measures (DIRCM) self-protection systems for defending Germany’s A400M aircraft fleet.
The contract is just the latest in a string of blockbuster deals between Israeli defense firms and international militaries. Israeli defense exports to Europe jumped to 54% of overall defense exports last year, up from just over 33% in 2023, according to the Israeli media outlet Globes.
Elbit’s defense system works to counter infrared-guided missiles, with a focus on mobile anti-aircraft weapons. It offers the ability to track missile threats as they happen and also provides automatic protection without needed human action.
Other countries which have deployed the system include Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Brazil. In February, Morocco announced plans to purchase 36 Atmos 2000 self-propelled artillery systems from Elbit, making Israel the country’s third largest weapons supplier.
“This contract further strengthens Elbit Systems’ position as a leading global provider of DIRCM solutions,” Elbit president and CEO Bezhalel Machlis said. “Our systems are already trusted by numerous air forces and defense organizations around the world, and we are proud to support Germany in enhancing the protection of their strategic air assets. Our successful collaboration with Airbus DS on this important program is highly valued, and we are pleased that our advanced self-protection systems will contribute to the safety and operational readiness of the German A400M fleet.”
The announcement prompted Elbit’s share price to jump 1 percent on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).
Since Israel’s 12-day war against Iran, Israel’s financial markets have been buoyed by significant foreign investment and renewed investor confidence. Over the past year, the TASE has repeatedly broken past its all-time highs, despite Israel’s multi-front wars.
On Friday, Germany announced that it would not join France in recognizing a Palestinian state. A government spokesperson said “Israel’s security is of paramount importance to the German government” and that “the German government therefore has no plans to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term.”
On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that the country had no plans to sanction Israel and that “for now, we want to await the foreign minister’s trip and the talks that will be held with the Israeli government in the coming days.”
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Israel Says Brazil’s Exit From IHRA Shows ‘a Profound Moral Failure’
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts after meeting with Brazilian citizens, who were repatriated from the Gaza Strip, upon arrival at the Air Force base of Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 13, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
The Brazilian government has not yet confirmed its reported decision to withdraw from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), however both Brazilian media and the Jewish state have have done so.
On Thursday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated on X that “Brazil’s decision to join the legal offensive against Israel at the ICJ [International Court of Justice] while withdrawing from the IHRA, is a demonstration of a profound moral failure. At a time when Israel is fighting for its very existence, turning against the Jewish state and abandoning the global consensus against antisemitism is both reckless and shameful.”
On Wednesday, reports emerged of Brazil’s plans to join South Africa in charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Africa has argued the case against Israel since December 2023.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Shay Salamon, Director of Hispanic Affairs, condemned Brazil’s withdrawal from IHRA in a Friday statement.
“The Brazilian government’s move is not only irresponsible, but also deeply alarming at a time of rising antisemitism worldwide,” Salamon said. “Denying the importance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and abandoning its Working Definition of Antisemitism minimizes the Holocaust and disregards the history of a people who have been victimized by hatred for ages.”
Salamon stated that “Brazil is home to the second-largest Jewish community in Latin America, including many descendants of Holocaust survivors, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has now turned his back on them. This decision, on top of his constant attacks on Israel, further confirms what was already clear — President Lula has normalized antisemitism in his official discourse. His approach represents neither neutrality nor diplomacy — rather, it’s complicity.”
Fernando Lottenberg, who serves as Organization of American States (OAS) Commissioner for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, offered his analysis of Lula’s move in a thread of posts on X, saying that “this is a step in the wrong direction.”
“Although Brazil has not adopted the [IHRA antisemitism] definition nationally, it has been adopted in 12 Brazilian states so far, as well as in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo,” Lottenberg wrote. “The IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism is an important tool that, although not legally binding, has been adopted by more than 45 countries and 2,000 institutions around the world to help inform, identify, and combat antisemitism.”
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Jewish Father and Son Verbally Assaulted in Italy Over Child’s Kippah
Demonstrators participate in a pro-Palestinian protest in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy, on November 23, 2024 (Photo by Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto)
A Jewish man from France and his child were verbally assaulted at a gas station near Milan in Italy this week by a group of pro-Palestinian supporters — an incident that has triggered strong condemnation from the country’s Jewish community.
On Monday, a group of pro-Palestinian individuals shouted antisemitic slurs at a Jewish man and his son after spotting the child wearing a kippah, hurling phrases like “Free Palestine” and “murderers” as they passed by.
The incident was captured and widely shared on social media, showing the father shouting “Am Yisrael Chai” — Hebrew for “The people of Israel live” — in response to the antisemitic insults, while his child appeared visibly upset.
Amid a growing wave of antisemitic hate crimes, this latest incident has sparked widespread outrage on social media, with activists and the local Jewish community calling for urgent and decisive measures to combat the increasing anti-Jewish hatred across Europe.
Yossi Spitzky, a French-Jewish public relations activist, denounced the incident on social media, calling the surge in antisemitism “completely unbearable.”
“A Jewish man stopped at a gas station on a highway in Italy and was targeted with chants of ‘Free Palestine’ just because his son was wearing a kippah. He’s French — this has nothing to do with Israel,” he wrote in a post on social media.
“How far have we fallen? Don’t you think this has gone too far? In ten years, will we be saying ‘never again,’ or will we choose to stand up against this hatred now?” he continued.
The incident comes amid a surge in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment across Europe and around the world since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In Italy, Jewish individuals have been facing a surge in hostility and targeted attacks, including vandalism of murals and businesses, as well as physical assaults. Community leaders warn that such incidents are becoming more frequent amid growing tensions related to the war in Gaza.
Last month, a masked individual targeted a synagogue in Rome, spray-painting a swastika and antisemitic slogans — “Sieg Heil” (“Hail Victory”) and “Juden Raus” (“Jews Out”) — on a sign near the entrance.
In May, a restaurant in Naples forced an Israeli family to leave, telling them, “Zionists are not welcome here.”
Earlier this year, a homeless Egyptian man in Rome attacked a Jewish boy and injured a shopkeeper who tried to intervene. In a separate incident, anti-Israel protesters defaced a synagogue with graffiti reading “Justice for a Free Gaza.”
Last year, a hotel manager in Rome canceled an Israeli couple’s reservation just one day before their trip, accusing them of genocide and telling them the hotel would “be happy to grant free cancellation.”
“We inform you that the Israeli people as those responsible for genocide are not welcome customers in our structure,” the hotel manager told the Israeli couple.
The post Jewish Father and Son Verbally Assaulted in Italy Over Child’s Kippah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.