The Many Movements of Chabad MAYA BALAKIRSKY KATZ
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The withdrawal from Sinai, handing over present, they concentrate their efforts on strength- Palestinian cities after the Oslo Accords, the re- ening halakhic observance and education, while treat from south Lebanon and then, most devas- waiting for the masses to embrace their tradition. SHMA.COM tating, the razing of the Israeli settlements in the Other messianist settler groups, like the Gaza Strip — these have become an almost in- Jewish underground (early 1980s) or the Bat surmountable challenge to the settlers’ messianic Ayin Underground (2002), have turned to acts worldview. Its adherents today are experiencing a of violence in an attempt to force an apocalyptic major crisis of faith, and their response to this cri- event (or simply an all-out war) that will force sis divides them into a number of distinct groups. the state to conquer its forsaken lands. And Some, like Rabbi Shmuel Tal, have given up all some, led by the post-Zionist and deeply kab- hope for the State of Israel. They no longer see it balistic teachings of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, as divinely ordained, and they have, for all intents aim to overthrow the secular government in a and purposes, joined the Haredi world, thus al- revolution of consciousness that will reconnect lowing them to shift the center of their religious every Jew to his or her innermost soul. Most life from Zionism to halakhah. Some, led by the Religious Zionists, however, are simply living prominent Rav Tzvi Tao, have delayed redemp- their bourgeois life, hoping for the best, some- tion indefinitely, and, while still sure it’s on its what less convinced of the state’s divine status, way, have transferred progress toward it to the and ever more wary of sweet-talking prophets dimension hidden from the unlearned eye. At bringing tidings of the End. The Many Movements of Chabad MAYA BALAKIRSKY KATZ habad, a tiny minority among world Jewry, modern media saw many innovations, such as the is Judaism’s most recognized public face. traveling emissaries (shluchim) who spread the CTo a large degree, the religious outreach Rebbe’s religious revival campaigns (mivzoyim) of Chabad has replaced the mid-century focus around the globe. The Chabad movement saw a on Diaspora Zionism with a proudly religious means to advance its presence through a proud — diasporism. Under the leadership of its last rebbe, and often controversial — visual culture. For ex- Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902- ample, its spirited defense of some civic displays of 1994), Chabad in America evolved its leadership religious life — such as the lighting of Hanukkah to include a geographically scattered group of fol- menorahs in the public square — became a way lowers, turning a necessary response to disloca- for Chabad communities to participate in, criticize, tion into a modus operandi of modern Chabad. and attempt to reform American Jewish life. Institutional Chabad consciously used modern Chabad’s leadership has historically shown media (lithography, museums, celebrity photogra- itself to be flexible in the face of change. When phy, the Internet, satellite television) to construct a the sixth dynastic rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak broad social network, binding its devotees to God, Schneersohn (1880-1950), was separated from his to their rebbe, to each other, and to their public. At Hasidim in 1927, the exchange of portrait photo- the same time, other ultra-Orthodox groups have graphs (a potentially dangerous practice in Soviet Maya Balakirsky Katz is avowedly rejected these same media. Russia) helped bridge the distance. Subsequent associate professor of art Chabad’s relationship with media has en- to his immigration to America in 1940, the theo- history at Touro College and abled the movement’s efforts to globalize; its con- logical regionalism of the Belarusian Court, once University System, and a troversial messianism has also garnered media considered sacred and immutable, needed to be member of the faculty of attention to the movement. Consider Chabad’s rethought. Chabad Hasidim purchased a build- Touro’s graduate school of Jewish studies. She has written attitude to docu-videography and the display of ing for Schneersohn in the typical model of on the intersection of religious ceremonial objects. Schneerson, known simply the privately owned shtibl, hundreds of which identity and media in essay as the “Rebbe,” is the single most video-docu- already existed in New York. A tri-peaked, red collections, exhibition catalogs, mented leader in history. The world knows the brick home on Eastern Parkway, the building encyclopedias, and journals. Rebbe through his public image — his portraits, signaled Chabad’s revitalization in a country that Most recently, she authored sound recordings, and filmed appearances. But the Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak promised would be a final The Visual Culture of Chabad (Cambridge University Press, construction of this celebrity figure has little bear- resting place before the coming of the Messiah. 2011). She is editor of the ing on the way most of his followers interacted In an unprecedented move in the mid-1980s, forthcoming volume Revising with him during his lifetime. Chabad’s embrace of continued on next page Dreyfus: Art and Law (Brill Press). DECEMBER 2012 | TEVET 5773 [13] though, the Rebbe initiated a mission to replicate succeeded in dispatching photo-mechanical re- the Brooklyn shtibl; he directed his followers productions (portrait photographs and videog- to build an exact replica in Israel as a satellite raphy) to maintain a dynastic movement in the SHMA.COM chapter. Intended to defend the Brooklyn shtibl face of immigration, he used the same media from a property claim by Barry Gourary, the last practices (in the form of architectural replica- living heir of the deceased Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak tion) to put an end to the very same dynasty, Schneersohn, the replica would bolster the legal proliferating the movement’s teachings through (and revisionist) claim that the Brooklyn build- a more effective, institutional organization. ing and its holdings belonged to an institutional During the height of the property dispute in Chabad rather than to any private owner. New York’s federal court, the Rebbe urged his With his decision to replicate his dynastic followers in the Israeli settlement Kfar Chabad court (known simply by its Crown Heights, to raise a building within the year, a request that Brooklyn house number: “770”), the Rebbe inspired speculation on the imminent arrival of transformed Chabad from a dynastic leader- the Messiah. The court ruled in favor of the insti- ship model to an international, corporate-style, tutional model of ownership in 1987 (a complete Jewish religious organization. Just as the Rebbe revision of historic Chabad) and the Brooklyn building was replicated in sites as anomalous as the desert landscape in Israel, the university campus of Rutgers in New Brunswick, N.J., and urban Brazil. Concretely, the 1940 purchase of a Chabad court in Brooklyn shifted Chabad’s historic attention from the Belarusian court in Lyubavichi to an American-centered identity. With a second phase of dislocation through “Emissaries/ Shluchim the Rebbe’s replication of the Brooklyn build- in front of ‘770’” ing in Israel in the mid-1980s, the building(s) by Julian Voloj signaled the corporate nature of the movement. Chabad shifted the focus from what it saw as a of Michigan; Taube Center for Jewish Studies, failed Russian history to an optimistic and proudly Stanford University; Lippman Kanfer Family American religious identity and, in this shift, and Foundation; Carol Brennglass Spinner; Bruce Whizin; Marilyn Ziering with an adeptness that could be seen as very mod- SHMA.COM Donations to Sh’ma are tax deductible. ern, Chabad transformed its institutional identity Sh’ma is available in microfilm from University Editor-in-Chief: Susan Berrin from a Hasidic dynasty to a religious corporation. Micro films International, Ann Arbor, Mich., and Founding Editor: Rabbi Eugene Borowitz in audio format from the Jewish Braille Institute. When people ask me why the Rebbe never ap- Publisher: Josh Rolnick The journal Sh’ma and the Sh’ma archive are pointed a successor, I say that he did: 770. text-searchable online at shma.com and bjpa.org. Art Director: Emily Rich For Chabad, the line between congrega- Online Director: Robert J. Saferstein Subscriptions: $49/2 years in U.S.; $29/1 Budget Director: Neal Colby year; $59/2 years international; $39/1 year tion and audience is thin; the movement’s keen Webmaster: Hyung Park international; $21.97 for one year senior/ awareness of itself, with its very media-oriented student. Bulk subscriptions are available at Sh’ma Advisory Committee: reduced prices. Please notify the subscription sensibility, is one of its greatest survival skills. Yosef I. Abramowitz, Aryeh Cohen, Charlotte office in writing if you prefer that your name The late-stage messianism that transformed the Fonrobert, Neil Gillman, Lisa D. Grant, Richard not be given out on rented lists. Hirsh, Shawn Landres, Julian Levinson, Shaul Brooklyn building brings up interesting questions Magid, Noam Pianko, Or Rose, Danya Ruttenberg, Address all editorial correspondence to Sh’ma, Carol Brennglass Spinner, Devorah Zlochower P.O. Box 1368, Menlo Park, CA 94026, or of religious content but should not preclude atten- E-mail: [email protected]. Contributing Editors: Michael Berenbaum, Elliot tion to the perhaps more interesting question of For all Web-related inquiries, contact Robert J. Dorff, Arnold Eisen, Leonard Fein, Barry religious form. Chabad’s transformation in attitude Freundel, Rela M. Geffen, Neil Gillman, Irving Saferstein: [email protected]. Greenberg, Joanne Greenberg, Brad Hirschfield, Send all subscription queries and changes of and its comprehension of new forms of communi- Lori Lefkovitz, Richard Marker, Deborah Dash address to Sh’ma, P.O. Box 439, Congers, NY cation enabled the extension of the movement past Moore, Vanessa Ochs, Kerry Olitzky, Riv-Ellen 10920-0439.