Review of Menachem Mendel Schneerson: Becoming the Messiah by Ezra Glinter (Yale University Press, 2024)
Reporting of “secret tunnels” and the arrest of nine members of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch group in Brooklyn was met with bemusement by the wider Jewish community and sparked a predictable wave of antisemitic conspiracies across the internet. Chabad’s leadership called the illegal passageway jutting through synagogue walls “the vandalism of a group of young agitators.” What led this cell to spend years executing a clandestine digging operation within their own synagogue?
Belief within Chabad that their departed leader — known as the Rebbe — is the savior and liberator of the Jewish people, the literal Messiah, is widespread. Although in Judaism dying is traditionally considered to be a sure sign of not being the Messiah, messianic fervor around the Rebbe sharply accelerated after his death in 1994, particularly for a small but vocal group of “Meshichists.” The Rebbe had perhaps at some point in his final years expressed his desire to expand Chabad’s headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, and members of this faction were determined to bypass their leadership’s authority and fulfill supposed expansion plans by taking matters into their own hands.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, or the Rebbe, is the most famous Jewish religious figure of the twentieth century. Under his leadership, a minor Jewish sect grew into a global institution, with thousands of outposts known as “Chabad houses” around the world. While earlier biographies have been mostly hagiographic, a new book, Menachem Mendel Schneerson: Becoming the Messiah by the Forward editor Ezra Glinter,…
Auteur: Jonathan Agin
