THE , THE NEOCON, AND

NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 3 8/29/13 9:07 AM “ The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: ‘Let us differentiate’ …between totally different species.” —The -Lubavitcher

BY YASHA in its ranks. In the early 1990s, my grandparents, and nurture them Chabad’s passive-aggressive racism in a way that allowed those seeds to LEVINE helped trigger a three-day race riot in #ourish and blossom into the kind of . Earlier this year, a prominent work to which I have dedicated my life. Cory Booker, the Democratic Chabad mocked victims of “Right now, I am on the streets of candidate for Senator, childhood sexual abuse who went Newark, battling what I think is one has been endorsed by the public, comparing their sexual abuse to of the most important battles in as the next progressive hope…a “diarrhea” which is “embarrassing but city, in this nation, to try to make the younger, more populist version of Barack it’s nobody’s business.” spirit of God alive and well. As one Obama, a guy who’s not afraid to get Booker’s relationship with the sect of my rabbi friends told me—to try to down and dirty. !e Times’ op-ed goes back to the early ’90s, when he truly bring about, through e$ort and wizards described Booker as a “deeply became an active member of Chabad sweat, or whatever necessary—the unconventional politician,” known for out"ts at Oxford and Yale. !e Messianic Era.” “once rushing into a burning house connections he forged through Chabad Yes, you read that right. Cory before the "re department arrived— have provided him with a wealthy and Booker, progressive star and likely saving a woman and traumatizing his powerful right-wing donor network future Senator of New Jersey, is security detail,” and they predicted that that helped seed his political career. But “humbled” and “empowered” by he “will be able to use his political star the relationship was more than a simple Chabad, and helping “make the spirit status to "ght for the neglected, the political alliance: Booker became of God alive and well … to truly bring powerless, people who are working and mesmerized with Chabad’s teachings about … the Messianic Era.” people who need to work in New Jersey and began studying with Chabad What the hell is going on? Why is and nationally.” . He now reads Hebrew, recites Booker throwing in with a far-right Unconventional indeed. But there’s portions of the from memory, apocalyptic Jewish cult? And what does one unconventional side to Booker’s helps Chabad fundraise and—most it say about his politics? To understand progressivism that has received much disturbingly—genuinely shares the why Booker’s relationship with Chabad less recognition. His political career sect’s messianic worldview. As Booker is so disturbing, you "rst have to was launched with the help of the told a room full of wealthy Chabadnik understand what Chabad is all about. Chabad-Lubavitchers, a rabidly right- funders in Morristown, New Jersey, wing Hasidic cult that considers its back in 2000, when he was a just a !e Chabad-Lubavitcher is a dead Rebbe a messiah and that pushes lowly Newark council member: Hasidic Orthodox sect that originated a regressive right-wing worldview “…the reason why I say that I am in the late-18th century in a village that would horrify Booker’s prog humbled to stand before you is that I on what is now the border between supporters: deep- rooted racism, violent am truly empowered by the Lubavitch Russia and Belarus. One of many Islamophobia, medieval positions movement, and speci"cally by a competing Hasidic right-wing biblical on everything from abortion to number of Lubavitcher rabbis I have nonconformist sects, it di$erentiated and women’s rights, and come to know over the last few years. itself by stressing the study of mystical a nasty tendency to normalize sexual !ey helped me take seeds that were Jewish texts. !e sect expanded, abuse and protect serial sexual predators planted by my elders, my parents and battled other Jewish sects, opposed

“…this is what I believe the Rebbe had in mind. That you have to, in every single way, reach out and love the world, to be a light of goodness and love and a light of God’s light, because this country of ours needs it, because this world of ours needs it.” —Cory Booker

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 4 8/29/13 9:07 AM Napoleon, sucked up to the Czar, Judaism would scare away most secular to be associated more and more with produced various religious texts and Jews, these outreach e$orts presented evangelical Christians, right-wingers, commentaries, and generally did a softer, more tolerant and mainstream Zionists and neocons. what all Hasidic sects did at the time. version of the faith. Chabad’s By the ’90s, just about every !ings started to go bad in the 20th emissaries/missionaries became prominent Chabad rabbi believed that century. Chabad nearly went extinct, amazingly good at putting a modern, the Rebbe was the messiah. Menachem "rst losing power to modernism and inclusive face on Chabad, and began Friedman, a Chabad scholar and secularization, then getting booted out to aggressively steal marketshare from professor at Bar-Ilan University, wrote of the Soviet Union and "nally being Reform and Conservative Judaism. in 1993, “Today, virtually all Chabad decimated by the Nazis in WWII. Professor Marvin Schick, an expert on hasidim recognize the Rebbe as the Joseph —then-head Jewish education, described Chabad as messiah and no longer hesitate to of Chabad and the great-great-great- the “Walmart of Jewish life, a mega- express their views in public.” It was a great-grandson of the guy who started phenomenon that keeps growing at a view that took Chabad out of the orbit the whole thing—escaped to Crown remarkable rate by entering new and of traditional and Heights in Brooklyn, where he began underserved areas, and by exploiting made it a heretical sect—sort of like preaching that the end times were near. the vulnerability of existing service Jews for . Joseph Isaac’s son-in-law Menachem providers. Growth provides the impetus But then, in 1994, the Rebbe died. Mendel Schneerson—MMS, for and resources for additional growth.” Apocalypse did not come, and most —took over the family racket and But as it strengthened its prominent Chabadnik rabbis began became “the Rebbe.” Rebbe took this mainstream credentials with the Jewish to publicly deny they ever believed the messianism to a whole new level in that public, internally Chabadniks were Rebbe was the messiah. But after his he saw himself as a messiah. !e world hyper-radicalizing and becoming more death, Chabad’s messianic outreach and was about to end, so it was imperative and more messianic. conversion activities only accelerated. to prepare, which meant bringing !e Rebbe saw the collapse of the Over the next two decades, the secular Jews from America and around Soviet Union as a sign that apocalypse number of missionary Chabad families the world into the Chabad fold. !e was at hand, that the old enemy of quadrupled. Something like 4,000 of group began cobbling together a wide Chabad had "nally been destroyed. them are now spread out in 1,000 cities network of outreach centers, installing It also meant that millions of secular around the world. Chabad rabbis near college campuses Russian Jews were now available and Chabad increased its presence most and in remote communities, and ripe for conversion. For weird reasons, notably in the former Soviet Union. making rabbis accessible and available Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the I "rst learned about Chabad not for funerals, weddings and other Jewish Gulf War were also seen as a sure long after my family immigrated to rituals. Because Chabad’s regressive sign of the end days. Chabad began San Francisco from the Soviet Union

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 5 8/29/13 9:07 AM in 1990. Like most secular Bay Area favorite oligarch-turned-political- with blood on their hands. He was Jews, all I ever really knew about the prisoner Mikhail Khordorkovsky. targeting Jewish community leaders! Chabad-Lubavitchers was surface stu$: Back in the 1990s, in the Yeltsin He was coming after the Jews! they lit a huge menorah every year era, a group of Jewish oligarchs led by !at was how the Western press in Union Square, prowled the streets Soviet-theater-director-turned-post- played Putin’s "ght with the oligarchs, during Jewish holidays in out"tted Soviet-media-baron Vladimir Gusinsky beginning with his arrest of Gusinsky RVs—“mitzvah tanks”—blasting set up an umbrella organization to in 2000. “Gusinsky arrest raises fears Jewish techno music, and ran represent Russian Jews. Named the for Russia’s Jews,” blared a Telegraph dinners for UC Berkeley students, Russian Jewish Congress, it was created headline in 2000. where I was told they pour plenty of for one major purpose: to give Gusinsky “!e harassment of Vladimir wine and get everyone drunk. Oh and his fellow oligarchs a much-needed Gusinsky, the Jewish media magnate and a Chabad rabbi in San Francisco cloak of respectability. And it worked. charged with embezzlement, is being managed to con a couple of my Soviet linked to attempts by the Russian émigré buddies in San Francisco into government to exacerbate a split among getting circumcised when they were the country’s Jews and curb their already in their late teens. From what in#uence in public life. they told me, it was painful as hell. “…!e World Jewish Congress in But they did score a couple of Tower New York said Mr. Gusinsky’s arrest Records gift certi"cates in return. was part of a disturbing pattern of But I really got up close and pressure against Jewish interests in personal with the Chabadniks when Russia. It said: ‘!e Jewish community I was just starting out as an earnest has noted with distress the ongoing gumshoe reporter nearly a decade ago. attacks by government-owned and I had moved back to my native city other media against Gusinsky and the of St. Petersburg in the mid-2000s, Russian Jewish Congress.’ and had a side-gig freelancing for the “‘Russian Jewish leaders believe Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a newswire that this is just the start of a general service for mainstream American Jews. move against groups that dare to be My gig put me in frequent contact with independent of the government.’ the Lubavitchers, and I was constantly ‘!ey’ve started with the Jews because weirded out and shocked by their right- we’re the most vulnerable,’ said wing and racist views, sleazy, unethical Alexander Osovtsev, vice-president of behavior and their aggressive attempts the Russian Jewish Congress. ‘We’re to convert secular Jews into born-again the "rst to be attacked, but we certainly Chabadniks. won’t be the last.’” By the time I arrived, Chabad had Similar stories ran in papers become the biggest and most powerful As the head of the RJC, Gusinsky around the world, international Jewish Jewish organization in Russia. No was treated no longer just as a smart organizations expressed concern, other religious Jewish out"t even came gangster and cut-throat businessman, U.S. and Israeli politicians said they’d close to competing with it in terms of but also as a respected leader of Russia’s get involved. In short, it was a PR funding, political connections and sheer Jewish community. nightmare for Putin. He needed organizational energy. Its emissaries— Gusinsky’s RJC revealed its someone from the Jewish world in usually family groups consisting of a usefulness in the early 2000s, when his corner, reassuring folks that anti- young rabbi, his wife and their kids— Putin began warring with the Yeltsin- Semitism had nothing to do with his were spread throughout something era oligarchs who had initially put him crackdown on Jewish oligarchs. like 40 cities. Yep, Chabad was the in o%ce. !e "ght was largely about And that’s where Chabad came in. undisputed King of Russian Jews, but political and economic power. Among Not long after Putin took power, he not because it had succeeded on its other things, Putin wanted to put worked out a deal with Chabad. !e merits or had been embraced by the the state back in control of the main organization would have to publicly locals. Nope, Chabad owed its in#uence Russian resources: banking, media and and loudly support Putin’s policies, and and power to a cynical and sleazy deal energy… but that’s not how it was it defend him against charges of anti- it worked out with Vladimir Putin—a was reported in the press. From the Semitism. In return, it would receive deal that went back to Putin’s war very beginning, newspapers framed it lavish funding from two Putin-friendly with the original, and mostly Jewish, as an authoritarian struggle with heavy oligarchs, and get the full support of Yeltsin-era oligarchs: Boris Berezovsky, overtones of anti-Semitism. Putin the Russian government to operate Vladimir Gusinsky and everyone’s wasn’t going after ruthless gangsters in the Russian Federation. In short,

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 6 8/29/13 9:07 AM Chabad would become Putin’s third- into Chabad’s sudden rise in Russia. then Russia, were allowed to leave, the party spokesman. Or, as some called !is revealed that the third-party amendment has not been repealed.” them, Putin’s Court Jews. advocacy deal Chabad o%cials had And Chabad kept its promise. !at deal was on full display in struck up with Putin wasn’t restricted Just from the little information that’s September 2000, a few months after to protecting him from charges of anti- publicly available, we know that Gusinsky was arrested on charges of Semitism. Chabad had also promised the organization directly lobbied embezzlement, when Putin showed up to milk its D.C. connections and act as members of Congress and the Obama at a dedication ceremony for a brand- covert lobbyists on behalf of Russia: administration on multiple occasions. new Chabad community building in “…another reason for the close Chabad members also did a whole the center of Moscow. !e facility ties between the Putin government lot of general #ack work promoting was built with $12 million, mostly and FEOR [Chabad’s organization favorable trade legislation for Russia. A with funds from Roman Abramovich in Russia] lies in the promises made 2007 Journal investigation and Lev Leviav, two Jewish Putin- by Leviev and Lazar that they would into links between Putin and Chabad aligned oligarchs who would become make their connections available to characterized Chabad as little more instrumental in Chabad’s rise to Putin and assist the Kremlin to open than a lobby group: “On numerous trips dominance over the next few years. doors in the corridors of power in to Washington, [Chabad’s Chief Russia !e ceremony, which was attended by Washington. Most importantly, they Rabbi Berl Lazar] lobbied members American ambassador James Collin, let Putin and his aides understand that of Congress, made speeches and gave was notable, !e New York Times their in#uence and lobbying would countless media interviews against the pointed out, “because Mr. Putin Jackson-Vanik amendment. !at Cold e$ectively gave a government blessing War law, which curbed U.S. trade with to the Chabad Lubavich movement.” nations restricting emigration, has And Chabad gave that blessing long rankled the Kremlin,” reported right back. Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, in 2007. executive director of Chabad’s out"t Chabad was still at it in 2009, directing in Russia, used his speech to praise its lobbying e$orts at the Obama Putin as a friend of the Jewish people administration. and to dispel foolish talk about his While Chabad reps were hitting anti-Semitism. !e New York Times the beltway lobbying circuit, their reported Berkowitz as saying, “We colleagues back in Russia were believe the government is not anti- waging a war against the existing Semitic, and we believe the government Jewish populace. In the course of my will help us to #ourish and grow. !e reporting, I met non-Chabad Jewish message here—to all minorities of all community leaders who were shocked religions—is that they will be given and horri"ed by Chabad’s aggressive, the opportunity to grow in a new unethical and sometimes straight up democratic Russia.” illegal attempts to strip other Jewish Chabad o%cials who had been organizations of assets and property. shipped in from the U.S. to run the Here in the States, Chabad out"t in Russia stuck to their end of approaches its missionary attempt to the deal. !ey continued to praise and convert and steal marketshare from support Putin while he systematically non-Orthodox Jewish groups in less took down, exiled and jailed aggressive ways. But in Russia, it insubordinate Yeltsin-era oligarchs: "rst bring about the abolition of a 1974 simply took what it wanted, using its Vladimir Gusinsky, then Berezovsky, Congressional amendment to the Trade political connections to raid and seize and "nally Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Reform Act sponsored by Senator synagogues and other communal his business partner Platon Lebedev, Henry Jackson and Representative property in cities across Russia. !at both of whom are now serving long jail Charles Vanik, both Democrats. Putin happened in the Siberian city of terms for tax evasion and fraud. is deeply distressed by this legislation, Omsk, where local chinovniki seized With Putin providing the political which stipulates that countries, such as a synagogue that had been operated backing and Jewish Putin-friendly the former Soviet Union, which restrict by a Reform Jewish organization oligarchs providing the cash, Chabad freedom of movement and prevent the since the 1990s and handed it over became an unstoppable force in Russia’s free emigration of their citizens will to Chabad’s FEOR. !e Wall Street ramshackle Jewish community. But not receive special trade bene"ts from Journal reported that this was done at success had a price. In 2005, Haaretz the . Even though the the suggestion of Abramovich, who published a very detailed investigation Jews of the former Soviet Union, and promised to increase funding for the

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 7 8/29/13 9:07 AM community if it was handed over to a Jew in Russia, so my editors at the a rat. He was comically condescending. Chabad, even though it was against the Jewish Telegraphic Agency took what “We can talk about what to eat, what wishes of the community: they could get. to drink, maybe even what to fuck,” he “Some congregants in Omsk were Because the budding star of my said “fuck” with a grin and chuckle. disappointed by the new direction. !e pro"le, one DJ Tiësto, had attended “But that’s about it.” town’s new rabbi, a Chabadnik from a local Chabad school for a few years, He wasn’t joking. He kept at it, , surprised them by organizing I scheduled a meeting with the local saying this over and over in various special celebrations in honor of the Chabad missionary. !e guy invited di$erent ways, trying to make me feel Rebbe, who died in 1994 but is still me over to talk in his apartment, a insecure and to work his cult voodoo on revered by Lubavitchers, who often dingy concrete-panel Khrushev-era me…maybe in the hopes that I would hang portraits of him in their homes. apartment building not far from break down and embrace the Rebbe, ‘People here don’t really understand Volga’s central district. !e streets whose portrait hangs in every Chabad why we should have special prayers in the area were lined with beautiful home and o%ce. His kaballistic black for the Rebbe’s birthday,’ says [Omsk’s stone Stalin-era buildings built by magic might’ve worked better if he Reform community leader] Mr. [Ilya] German prisoners of war. wasn’t such a fucking loser himself, Edelshtein. ‘It feels like idolatry.’” !e rabbi was somewhere in his late and if we weren’t sitting there in a Chabad missionaries were just as 30s, frumpy, wearing a black rumpled grimy apartment, chain-smoking Pall unprincipled and sleazy in their "ght suit and a scraggly beard. After serving Malls and drinking shitty Lipton Tea for Russian Jewish souls as they were tea, we went out on the balcony to while his wife sulked around without for Jewish property. Hell, they even talk and smoke. I was planning on saying a word in the background, tried to convert me into a born-again getting some intel on the city’s small haggard and tired, taking care of a Chabadnik… Jewish community, on the local Jewish bunch of little brats. I remember one episode particularly institutions and maybe on Chabad’s I laughed it o$, but the experience well. I was in the southern Russian long-term plans in the area. But I didn’t creeped me out enough to pique my city of Volgograd—better known as get many questions answered. !e interest in Chabad’s weird world view. Stalingrad—doing a human-interest young rabbi told me it was useless to As I learned, all that mumbo-jumbo story (well, more like a parody of a explain anything to me about Chabad about souls is very much in line with human-interest story) on a local Jewish because my primitive mind wouldn’t mainstream Chabadist dogma, which kid who graduated from a local DJ understand. He, as a man whose mind that holds that Jews are born with school and now wanted to become the was steeped in the Torah, operated superior souls and generally exist on a most famous techno DJ in the entire on a higher spiritual plane; I—a mere holier and more exalted plain than non- former Soviet Union. Yep, that was the secular Jew—was stuck in the mire like Jews. Souls are separate and unequal— hook. But hey, it wasn’t easy "nding a "lthy dumb animal. A cow or maybe “totally di$erent species,” is how the

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 8 8/29/13 9:07 AM Rebbe put it. As for Jews like me who the mass ethnic cleansing—“slaughter,” Crown Heights, Chabadniks have long turn their back on God, well, we’re as Kahane call it—of all Arabs living been known for their bigoted and racist worse than animals, and can expect in Israel and the Occupied Territories. treatment of blacks in the community. to be punished by God unless we get In 1980, Kahane was arrested in In 1991, racial tensions that had been dipped in a mikvah and converted into Israel on terrorist charges. He and his simmering for years "nally boiled over. proper born-again Chabadniks. followers had been planning to go on It happened when a car in the Rebbe’s Some ridiculous corollaries emerge a killing spree against Palestinians in motorcade ran a red light, jumped a out of Chabad belief in the superiority the West Bank. In 1988, Kahane’s curb and ran over two seven-year-old of Jewish souls. For instance, they’ve political party was banned in Israel for black children, crushing one of them worked out a theory that explains being too racist—no easy feat in Israel’s to death. !e Rebbe made no attempt why non-Jews (who should logically racist culture. Kahane developed his to help the injured and continued to his have non-Jewish souls) can convert to violent racist politics while still living in o%ce a few blocks away. Nor did the Chabadism. Put simply: it’s because Brooklyn, where he founded the Jewish driver—Yosef Lifsh—make any attempt non-Jews who fully convert might Defense League, an organization that to help. Instead, he denied that he had not have been born to Jewish parents, recruited Jewish brownshirt squads to been driving the car and attempted to but they were born with Jewish souls. terrorize inner-city blacks, Muslims run away. After the accident, rumors Converts are Jews who were formerly and Soviet o%cials on U.S. soil, and spread through the African-American trapped in a goy’s body, which is which was classi"ed by the FBI and the community that Chabad’s own why they wanted to convert in the U.S. State Department as a “right-wing ambulance service arrived on the scene "rst place. It’s the Chabad version of terrorist group.” "rst, but refused to treat the dying child. transgender—or, transjudener. A number of Israeli Chabadniks !e incident triggered a violent anti- My interaction with Chabad in were arrested and investigated for their Chabad riot that lasted three days and Russia left a bad impression, and I’ve involvement in the assassination Prime left hundreds injured. It was one always kept my experiences in the back Minister in 1995. As the of the worst race riots in New York, of my mind, knowing that I’d probably Jerusalem Post reported, “it was a pair of and perhaps the only one directed have to revisit the Chabad thing sooner Chabad students from Gilo who against Jews. or later. But never did I expect it to be printed up the infamous photomontage To add insult to injury, Chabad in connection with someone like Cory of Rabin as an SS o%cer, according then shielded Yosef Lifsh and whisked Booker. to police who arrested them a few him out of the country to avoid having Peter Beinart, !e Daily Beast’s weeks after the assassination.” !e Post him brought to trial. “With the squishy liberal Zionist, pointed out also reported that in 1997, a couple of assistance of the Chabad community, that Chabad’s thinking on souls Chabadniks in the town of Lod sacked he #ed from the United States and hid is “deeply primitively racist” and a Jehovah’s Witness temple and burned in various places around the world, as has led Chabadnik rabbis to take their , dancing around the bon"re he feared for his life. A few years ago, violent and racist positions on the chanting “Long live our master. King he came to Israel, got married and Israeli-Palestinian con#ict, including Messiah for eternity.” In the 2000s, settled in the Kiryat Eliezer quarter advocating for Jim Crow-style laws Chabadniks violently opposed Israel’s of Haifa. He lives in an old apartment that would ban Israeli Arabs from disengagement from Gaza, threatening building near the industrial area, and renting or buying land in Israel. And to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel keeps a very low pro"le. To earn a plenty of Jews who’ve interacted with Sharon. living, he teaches Judaism at Chabad Chabad here in the States are also “Overseas, people think the Chabad centers in Haifa and at nursing homes familiar with the cult’s hardcore racism. movement does nothing but mitzvot. in the city,” Haaretz reported in 2002. Hell, I just got o$ the phone with a All they hear about is Chabadniks But the racism and bigotry just friend who attended a Chabad Shabbat bringing Yiddishkeit to the Jewish scratch the surface of what’s wrong with dinner here in where masses, handing out kiddush cups Chabad’s worldview. table talk instantly turned to the need by the thousands and holding Pessah Take Rabbi , a to exterminate Palestinians. Indeed, Seders for homesick Israeli travelers global emissary of Chabad-Lubavitch Chabad has become synonymous with in !ailand. And this is true, in part: and a respected lecturer, author and the worst, most regressive elements of Abroad, the dominant personality traits biblical scholar, who even hosts his own Israeli society. of the movement really are mitzvot television show, “Torah Forum with In the ’80s Chabad helped funnel and outreach. But not in Israel,” wrote Manis Friedman.” tax-deductible donations from the U.S. Larry Derfner in the Jersusalem Post. Well, Friedman has been known to Meir Kahane’s political out"t in Israel. !ey might be bad in Israel, but to veer into Holocaust denial territory, Kahane is an ultra-right-wing Orthodox Chabad also has serious tolerance claiming that Jews who perished in the rabbi who emigrated from Brooklyn to problems right here in the United States. Holocaust weren’t killed by Germans, Israel, became a politician and called for Even on their home turf in Brooklyn’s but by God, who punished them for

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 9 8/29/13 9:07 AM their secular lifestyle and lack of faith. I said, ‘What do you think, you’re “Who in fact died and who remained the only one who was molested? You alive had nothing to do with the Nazis. think your mother and grandmother … Not a single Jewish child died back in Russia made it through their because of the Nazis … they died in teenage years without being molested their relationship with God,” he said by a shegetz [nasty gentile]? So what? during a lecture in Australia some $ey stopped life? $ey wouldn’t years back. More recently, Friedman get married? $ey wouldn’t raise a expounded on the proper ways for family? What, are you so fragile? What Israel to wage war against Palestinians, happened to you?’” writing that it’s important to kill all Friedman’s comments are even “men, woman and children (and cattle)” more disgusting when you consider because the “only way to !ght a moral that Chabad communities have a war is the Jewish way.” He added: “I serious problem with child abuse and don’t believe in Western morality … molestation, shaming people into Living by Torah values will make us a staying silent, hiding the crimes from light unto the nations who su"er defeat authorities and moving suspected because of a disastrous morality of child abusers to di"erent countries to human invention.” help them escape investigation and Even more disturbing: Friedman prosecution. Manny Waks, a Chabad recently mocked victims of pedophilia member from Australia and a victim and sexual abuse, saying that it’s no of sexual abuse, told Australia’s SBS, big deal and that victims should just “We were shocked and hurt deeply go on with their lives. In the lecture, from his ignorant and o"ensive which was taped and leaked on the remarks, especially given that he is internet, Friedman, a small man with such a prominent global Rabbi that a limp cotton-ball beard that hangs is considered to be enlightened and down to his chest, told the audience modern. You can only imagine the that a lot—if not most—children in views of others in that community.” Chabad were sexually molested, Waks !led a police report against but glibly dismisses the problem by Velvel Serebryanski, the son of a comparing sexual abuse to diarrhea prominent Chabad rabbi who is which is “embarrassing but it’s nobody’s Chabad’s main “emissary” in Australia, business” and that the experience can be claiming Serebryanski sexually assaulted educational: “…if in fact you’ve learned him on multiple occasions. Australian that not every counselor is [holy] and not police began an investigation, but it every uncle is your best friend, you’ve was too late: Serebryanski had been learned an important lesson.” moved to Brooklyn, where he now lives Friedman’s comments are shocking, as “Zev Sero.” He’s one of a few other deeply disturbing and worth quoting suspected child molesters hiding out at length—and the thing to keep in from Australian justice in America. At mind as you read this is that Friedman least one suspected Chabad molester founded a Chabad yeshiva for young from Australia was caught sexually women in Twin Cities, Minnesota, and abusing children here in the States. still serves as the lead teacher there: It just so happens that Friedman is “I don’t know what the percentage connected to Rabbi , is, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Cory Booker’s longtime friend and the but, uh, there’s hardly a kid who comes guy who introduced him to Chabad to a yeshiva, to a program, that hasn’t back in Oxford. Boteach studied been molested, sexually molested… under Friedman, and frequently cites “I could open an o#ce and be busy and quotes the rabbi in his books, full time just telling people who’ve calling Friedman a “friend,” and a been molested, ‘So? Nobody’s allowed “great Jewish thinker” who “deepened to touch you. What, are you, holy? So my understanding of Jewish mystical you were touched? $at’s it.’ So I said to thought.” this girl, her family comes from Russia, Where does Cory Booker !t in?

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 10 8/29/13 9:13 AM Cory Booker is 6’3”, has a clean- . Young, charismatic shaven head, a big, white toothy smile and African-American, Booker and a slight case of strabismus in his was described as the “golden boy on right eye. He was born in Washington campus.” He helped promote the club D.C. and grew up in Harrington Park, and gave it a mainstream, pluralistic a mostly white upper-middle-class credibility that it would never have been suburb in northern New Jersey. His able to muster without him. “His thing parents were among IBM’s "rst black was to focus on the Jews who weren’t employees hired for management level interested in Judaism at all. Cory was position. His father, Cary, worked a feel-good guy, a schmoozer, and he in the sales department; his mother, was able to get anyone to come [to our Carolyn, was in marketing. His parents events]; it was like a salon and he was were overachievers, and the same was one of the guys behind it,” Ben Karp, expected of Cory. In high school, Booker’s friend from Yale, told Max Booker took all honors classes, played Blumenthal, who interviewed people football and was president of his senior close to Booker at Yale. class. He got into Stanford, where Karp, who was also a founding he continued to overachieve, playing member of Chai, told Blumenthal that varsity football, serving as student-body Booker’s intense study of the Torah, his president and volunteering as a crisis interest in Judaism and his pro-Israel counselor, before graduating with a views were totally genuine. “!e idea bachelor’s degree in political science. of Israel and the Jews as a people that According to Cory Booker, he wrestle with God is really appealing "rst became involved with Chabad to [Booker]. And he’s a Baptist with a at Oxford, where he was studying fundamentalist belief that the Jews are American history on a Rhodes the Chosen People. I really believe he Scholarship. !ere he became friends thinks the Jews are the Chosen People.” with Chabad Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Genuine or not, his Chabad who ran L’Chaim, a Chabad house connections—which provided access to that served Oxford students. Booker a lot of wealthy, politically connected was so enthralled with Chabad’s Jews from New Jersey, Connecticut and version of Judaism that he began New York—came in very handy when studying the Torah with Boteach, he entered politics in 1998 by running learned Hebrew and became involved for a seat on the Newark city council. with Chabad activities to the extent Indeed, people close to Booker that Boteach asked him to serve as say that his Chabad connections were president of the L’Chaim club, which vital in helping raise money for his made Booker the "rst black leader "rst campaigns. Karp readily admitted of a Chabad house in history. this Chabad base became a “natural Booker’s involvement with Chabad constituency” for Booker and that “it deepened after he was accepted into made sense that when he ran for o%ce Yale Law School, where he became he would begin raising money from the a founding member of a Chabad people we knew.” Booker admitted as out"t called the Chai Society. Since much in 2000, two years after winning renamed the Eliezer Society, Chai was the spot on the Newark City Council. headed by a right-wing Chabad named Speaking at a fundraiser dinner at Shmully Hecht and was designed Chabad’s Rabbinical College of America to attract a broader, more in#uential in Morristown, New Jersey, Booker Jewish crowd. It was run like an thanked Chabad’s wealthy backers for exclusive Jewish society club, hosting helping him launch his political career social events, dinners, discussions and and told the audience in clear, precise meet-and-great nights with luminaries terms that he shared Chabad’s mission of the Zionist right-wing Jewish of bringing in the “Messianic Era.” world, including former Israeli Prime L’Chaim, a newsletter of the Minister Ehud Barak, former senator Lubavitch Youth Organization, Joe Lieberman and Israel-"rst lawyer published Booker’s remarks:

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 11 8/29/13 9:07 AM “…the reason why I say that I am has tapped those Jewish connections in politician he admires, the "rst name humbled to stand before you is that I his campaign to "ll the seat of the late he produces is Democrat Cory Booker, am truly empowered by the Lubavitch U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who was the African-American Newark City movement, and speci"cally by a Jewish and helped raise hundreds of Councilman who is running for mayor number of Lubavitcher rabbis I have millions of dollars for Jewish causes— against incumbent Sharpe James. He come to know over the last few years. and with a cancer-research center in invokes Booker with an air of grave !ey helped me take seeds that were Jerusalem bearing his name. solemnity…” , planted by my elders, my parents and “Mr. Booker, 44 years old, has Hertog’s partner in the New York Sun my grandparents, and nurture them received tens of thousands of dollars in and co-founder of the in a way that allowed those seeds to campaign contributions from prominent program, also called Booker his “favorite #ourish and blossom into the kind of New Jersey Jewish leaders, and nearly politician” back in 2002. work to which I have dedicated my life. $120,000 from the pro-Israel NORPAC !e New York Observer reported “Right now, I am on the streets of political-action committee since January, that a guy named Mark Gerson was one Newark, battling what I think is one campaign "lings show.” of Booker’s biggest campaign fundraisers of the most important battles in the Other wealthy Jewish backers of in 2002. Gerson, a "nance guy and close city, in this nation, to try to make the Booker’s current campaign include the friend of Booker since his Yale law days, spirit of God alive and well. As one Tisch family, who control the Loews sat on the board of the Yale Chabad of my rabbi friends told me—to try to Corporation, a massive media, energy Elizier Society and was deeply connected truly bring about, through e$ort and and insurance company. !e Tisches to the neocon establishment. Variously sweat, or whatever necessary—the gave $75,000 to a Booker-connected described as a “right-wing networker,” Messianic Era.” PAC called the Mobilization Project. a “neoconservative” and “boutique !e New York Times noted that , a right-wing Jewish investment researcher,” he was buddies those connections provided a good "nancier and founder of the !e Israel with trust fund neocon , chunk of his campaign war chest in Times, which he recently launched wrote a suck-up book about the history 2002, when his sights were set on to combat the “global campaign on of the neoconservative movement, was wresting Newark’s mayoralty from many fronts to delegitimize the Jewish on the board of directors of !e Project old school Newark politician James State,” gave the PAC $100,000. As for for the New American Century and is a Sharp. “Unable to raise much money non-Jews, Ravenel B. Curry III and trustee at the Manhattan Institute. in Newark, where most donations his son, Ravenel B. Curry IV, gave the Yep, Booker’s name was a byword go to the mayor, Booker has held PAC $100,000. Curry III, who’s into among the highest right-wing Jewish fund-raising events in New York, asset and wealth management, sits on circles. In Newark, Booker became so Washington and the Jersey suburbs, the board of trustees of the American closely associated with that community many of these with Jewish donors.” Enterprise Institute and Manhattan that he responded defensively to Booker lost the race, but was able to Institute. Curry IV’s brother, Marshal, questions about the relationship tap this network for nearly $3M in made a pro-Booker documentary called by saying that people were simply campaign cash. Even at that early stage “Street Fight” about Booker’s run for “perpetuating a bigoted perception of of his career, Booker had a knack for Newark mayor in 2002. the African-American community. We attracting very powerful Jewish right- Speaking of which…Back when are a diverse community with a diverse wing supporters, a knack he proved Booker was just beginning his political experience,” he told NBC. again in a more recent election. career in 2002, one of his big early Sure, the African-American !e Wall Street Journal reported on supporters was Roger Hertog, a neocon community may be diverse, but his July 28, 2013: moneybag and Jewish philanthropist campaign fundraising seemed to be “He regularly reads verses from associated with Chabad. Among his somewhat biased. Booker tapped his the Torah. He once addressed 700 many neocon ventures, Hertog is the Chabad connections every time an congregants at a friend’s bar mitzvah. Chairman Emeritus of the Manhattan election rolled around. Let’s take a look In 2011, he took his parents to Israel for Institute, and funds the American at some of his fundraising activities. a ‘trip of a lifetime.’ And he is a staple at Enterprise Institute as well as the Club His Chabad buddies came through seder meals during Passover. For Growth. He also was one of the once again in 2010 to help raise money “He is Cory Booker, the African- main owners of neoconservative rag for his Newark mayor reelection American, Christian mayor of Newark. !e New York Sun. When American campaign. Among them was Booker’s “!e U.S. Senate candidate has Prospect pro"led Hertog in 2002, he old pal from Oxford, Rabbi Boteach. immersed himself in Jewish culture and ba&ed the reporter by naming Cory Boteach, a dwarf of a man with a serious Judaic study for two decades, Booker—who was then just a lowly shovel-shaped beard, is a pathological ever since he had an accidental meeting unknown Newark council member—as publicity whore. He wormed his way with an ultraorthodox Chabad- the only politician he had any respect for. into serving as ’s Lubavitch rabbi. And now, Mr. Booker “When I ask him to cite a contemporary spiritual advisor, landed his own TV

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 12 8/29/13 9:07 AM show on !e Learning Channel called Cola, Benyamin Netanyahu and various the blog FailedMessiah as the author in which he Chabad tycoons, and who has been a of comments defending puttered around in an RV (Chabadniks big, vocal fan of Chabad’s marketing on various blogs. Torossian had posted love RVs for some reason) dispensing strategies, even holding Chabad up as the comments using false names, Torah-based relationship advice to an example for other PR professionals to fraudulently impersonating well known clueless goy families. During the Bush follow. rabbis and kosher certi"cation o%cials. years, Boteach shamelessly sucked up Perhaps Torossian is best known in But two years later, he was at a kosher to Evangelical Christians, publishing the Chabad world as the guy who was sushi restaurant supporting Booker… columns on the bagger conspiracy hired to run cover for Agriprocessors, a !at’s not surprising, given the site WorldNetDaily with stu$ like, “I kosher slaughterhouse/meat processing kosher stamp of approval that Booker am a Jew who is deeply in love with operation in Postville, Iowa, that was got from Chabad. evangelical Christians” because they owned by the Chabadnik Rubashkin In 2007, Chabad’s Rabbinical have “enabled George W. Bush to family. Starting in the mid-2000s, College awarded Booker an honorary pursue a foreign policy based not on Agriprocessors—which had expanded degree. Past recipients include George expediency or realpolitik, but on a rapidly into the largest kosher meat H. W. Bush & Ronald Reagan’s deep-seated morality wherein tyrants are processor in the United States— Secretary of State Alexander Haig. punished and the oppressed liberated.” became involved in a rolling series of Booker was praised by Rabbinical And in 2012, Boteach unsuccessfully scandals: undercover videos showing College Dean Rabbi Moshe Herson, ran for a New Jersey Congressional seat inhumane slaughter practices and who is described by Shmarya as a Republican. His campaign was gruesome torture of cows that violated Rosenberg of the FailedMessiah blog as backed by , and he ran every kashrut law on the books, illegal “one of the most senior (and wealthiest) on school privatization, Islamophobia dumping of raw toxic waste into a local shluchim worldwide, controlling a and intervention in Syria and the river, monopolistic business practices territory rich with mega-donors.” . in the kosher meats market, illegal Chabad connections helped rake in But that was still all in the future. union busting, use of child labor and the cash for Booker’s campaigns, and he Back in April 2010, New York Post’s recruitment of illegal immigrants. returned the favor, regularly speaking Page Six reported that Rabbi Boteach Agriprocessors was one giant at Chabad fundraisers and working the had hosted a fundraiser for Booker at clusterfuck that lost millions of dollars crowd to everyone’s delight. “Who do “the soon-to-open PrimeKo kosher sushi in criminal penalties and in 2009, you think is the person most in demand restaurant on the Upper West Side.” sent , the devout as a speaker to Jewish groups in this Among those in attendance was Ronn Chabadnik butcher who ran the family country?” Boteach asked New Yorker Torossian, a deranged Likudnik PR business, to jail for 27 years. Peter J. Boyer in 2008. “Cory Booker.” whiz who has run campaigns for Coca- In 2008, Torossian was outed by In 2008, Booker tag-teamed

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 13 8/29/13 9:07 AM an AIPAC conference in Chicago, shrink from its duties. It stands up and their rabid neocons pals? And wowing the audience with Torah like Abraham and says onto the Lord: even more important: Why the hell quotes and pledging his commitment Hineni—Behold, here I am.” are all these Jewish neocons so keen on to protecting Israel and not giving up When Peter Beinart criticized backing Cory Booker’s political rise? any land… Chabad’s “deeply primitively racist” It all makes a lot more sense if you You can watch at least a dozen worldview a few months ago and stop thinking about Cory Booker as a videos on YouTube of Booker working pointed out that it counters Booker’s progressive Democrat—or a Democrat Chabad events, telling Chabadniks supposedly progressive values, Booker at all. how much he loves them and what doubled down on his Chabadnik ties. See, Booker might be running on a big role they’ve played in his life, He dismissed Beinart’s criticism and the Democratic ticket, but he has been all while peppering his speech with in an interview with Bloomberg’s seen for a long time in certain African- biblical quotes, yiddish slang and Je$rey Goldberg justi"ed his American circles as a covert weapon of the White Right—a “Black Trojan Horse for the Republican rightwing,” to quote retired Harvard professor Martin Kilson, the "rst African- American to receive full tenure at that institution. Professor Kilson wrote that back in 2002, when the young Booker was running for mayor of Newark. What set Kilson o$ was getting his hands on a copy of a talk Cory Booker gave at the Manhattan Institute luncheon in 2000. Booker was much more candid about his political values and policy positions back then, but that day he laid them out in very clear terms: bullshit “third-way” politics, small government, hacking away at medical and retirement bene"ts of public employees, privatizing public education and infrastructure: “!e old paradigm was an entitlement paradigm, in which large big city mayors controlled race-based machines. What that was really about biblical messianism. He spoke at a relationship with Chabad by invoking was capturing big entitlements from Chabad “funders dinner” just last year, the spirit of Malcolm X: the state and federal governments and boasting about being “the "rst black “You know, Alex Haley once told divvying them up among their cronies Christian head of a Chabad house the story of how a conservatively or among the people within their in the history of humanity” and then dressed white businessman came up to organizations to protect and preserve going on a weird biblical rant about Malcolm X and said that he disagreed their organizations. It was about why he supports Chabad: with him but respected his style, and distributing wealth. “Lubavitch is connecting the Malcolm X gets really close to the guy “!e new paradigm is about quick world. It is preserving Judaism. Not and says, ‘You know something? You thinkers, people who are trying to for cultural reasons. Not for food. can search the world two times over make their governments engines of Not so we could get together. But so and you’ll never "nd two people who economic opportunity and judge that people can stand up and tell the agree on everything.’” them not by how many jobs they can world their truth. … We are born Not sure whether Booker’s provide but by how much wealth they for a reason, we are born to tell our comparing himself or Boteach to can create and how e%ciently they can truth onto the world. And in times Malcolm X. Either way, it doesn’t deliver services within their own city. of injustice, and we are in times of make any sense. None of it seems to “…charter schools made me a injustice. In times when wrongs make any sense. I mean, how could little uncomfortable when I "rst heard must be righted, when God calls to Booker—a supposed progressive to the about them. humanity to answer. What makes me populist left of Obama—be running “But after four or "ve years of proud of Lubavitch is that it does not around with a tribe of Jewish Taliban working in inner-city Newark, I

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 14 8/29/13 9:07 AM began to rethink my situation, rethink the Walton family, the Lynde and But a closer look reveals that BAEO my philosophy, rethink my views on Harry Bradley Foundation and the is bankrolled by a small number of public education, simply because of Manhattan Institute—the same folks right-wing foundations better known the realities I saw around me. Being who once backed crypto-eugenicist for supporting education privatization outcome-focused started to change my Charles Murray. and a%rmative action rollbacks than view in favor of options like charter As soon as he was elected to empowering African-Americans or schools, contract schools and, yes, Newark’s city council in 1998, Booker low-income families. vouchers… started making the rounds, networking “Four groups that BAEO lists as “Public education is the use of public and bee"ng up his school privatization benefactors are major players in the dollars to educate our children at the credentials. In 1999, Booker started right-wing voucher movement. In fact, schools that are best equipped to do a “school choice” out"t called E3 the Walton Foundation and the Bradley so—public schools, magnet schools, with two partners: a Republican Foundation have "nanced much of charter schools, Baptist schools, politician and a wealthy conservative the movement. !e Milton and Rose Jewish schools, or other innovations in businessman from New Jersey. A year D. Friedman Foundation and the education. !at is where public dollars after that, Booker was taken on as a American Education Reform Council should go.” board member by the Black Alliance are pro-voucher advocacy groups Booker’s was a far-right vision for Education Options (BAEO), an that—while also receiving signi"cant straight outta the Koch-Walton- in#uential new school privatization funding from the Walton and Bradley Bradley freemarket-thinktank astroturf out"t created with Walton Foundations—are lending their own industrial complex. !at’s what set o$ and Bradley money to put a minority early "nancial support to BAEO, the professor Kilson’s right-wing radar and why he went on to describe Booker as “an errand boy Black politician for conservative Republican power-class penetration of governing control of Black Newark.” Kilson wasn’t the only one who noticed it. In 2000, right around the time Booker gave his Manhattan Institute speech, a reporter from the Moonie Washington Times followed Booker around and was genuinely surprised by his politics: “He’s not even a Democrat, if anyone wants to get technical about it. !e majority of his views are either Libertarian or the opposite of what the national, state or even local party bosses say is the Democratic platform.” Booker even had the movie taste of libertarian: a DVD collection restricted to sci- " "lms and biblical epics. In 2003, Booker’s neocon buddy/fundraiser Mark Gerson didn’t attempt to hide or pretty up Booker freemarket views, face on a school privatization agenda. relative newcomer.” telling the New Yorker: “He is pro- According to Diane Ravitch, “!e When Booker announced his run capitalist, pro-business. He’s pro- group is politically important because for Newark mayor in 2002, the Free school vouchers.” it provides cover for the conservative Congress Foundation proclaimed Indeed, if you ignore the progressive white men (and they are mostly men) Booker as one of the nation’s top four halo that’s been planted on Booker’s who are pushing privatization.” “New Black Leaders,” reported the head by mainstream progressives and In 2001, People for the American Black Commentator. It was a clear go back to the beginning of his rise, Way investigated BAEO and found signal to right-wing foundations all his right-wing politics pop right out. that: across the country: Cory Booker is our Booker’s early political career got a “BAEO bills itself as a coalition of kind of guy. big push from neocon and right-wing up-and-coming leaders working within Booker was so good on the issues thinktank machines, speci"cally the African-American community. that Wall Street Journal’s Koch poodle

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NSFW6_B-Side_v3ge.indd 15 8/29/13 9:07 AM John Fund gave him an unquali"ed on the /Manhattan “Beyond dealing with crime, Booker endorsement, calling him a “potent Institute diet. He brought in NYPD has personally raised $25 million national symbol for a new generation brass to run a “broken windows” from private donors for Newark’s of black leaders who reject Al policing program that prioritized charter schools fund—much of it Sharpton-style racial polarization” and citing and jailing people for minor from well-known philanthropists like noted Booker’s support for “charter o$enses, downsized the number of city John Walton, the son of Walmart’s schools” and “school choice” (aka employees, raised taxes, pushed school founder—"ghting the teachers union breaking teachers unions and turning vouchers programs funded by Walton every step of the way.” public education over to private and aimed to privatize Newark’s In an unscripted moment on “Meet contractors)—because clearly that’s water system, all while battling public the Press” during the 2012 Presidential what black people need, and anyone sector unions and giving corporation Election campaign, Booker lashed who disagrees is speaking from a tax breaks. News & World Report, out at President Obama for daring to position of white privilege! owned by rabid neocon Zionist Mort criticize private capital and Wall Street: Reagan’s supply-side groupie Jack Zukerman, praised Booker’s e$orts to “I have to just say from a very personal Kemp also endorsed Booker in 2002, reform Newark, writing in 2009: level, I’m not about to sit here and telling New York Magazine, “I don’t “!at moment can’t come fast indict private equity. To me, it’s just think there could be a "ner young enough for impoverished and drug- this—we’re getting to a ridiculous point rising star in urban politics than Cory plagued Newark, which never recovered in America, especially that I know. Booker. His policies go far beyond from the deadly 1967 riots that sent I live in a state where pension funds, Democratic-Republican. !ere has middle-class whites packing. Having unions and other people are investing to be a new way of thinking about assembled a team of experienced in companies like Bain Capital. If you poverty. Cory understands that private technocrats—McCarthy is a veteran look at the totality of Bain Capital’s enterprise is not the enemy of the of ’s Rudy Giuliani-era record, it ain’t—they’ve done a lot to urban poor.” You have to remember police force, while Booker’s deputy support businesses, to grow businesses.” that this was coming from a man mayor for economics led the Lower Coincidentally, !inkProgress found who blamed government anti-poverty Manhattan Development Corp. after out that Bain Capital and the private programs for creating poverty and the 9/11 attacks—Booker has already equity industry were major donors to said welfare was worse for blacks than made big changes. Police department Booker’s campaigns in Newark. Jim Crow. reforms and the installation of But must Booker lost the 2002 election for hundreds of security cameras around have missed all that when it o%cially Newark mayor, but he came back four the city have helped cut the murder rate endorsed Booker for New Jersey years later and rolled the opposition. by a third, and shootings have dropped Senator in early August, and lionized Once in power, he quickly put Newark even more sharply. him as a progressive.

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