Julia Duin
The first people I saw when I climbed out of the Kingston subway station on Friday were men in long black coats, wide-brimmed black hats and beards. was in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn borough that is the "Jerusalem" of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, in which the black suits are the norm. Founded 250 years ago in what was White Russia, the movement survived under the leadership of inspired rebbes (teachers), the latest being Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994.
The dilapidated brick building I faced as I exited the subway was his movement's headquarters, 770 Eastern Parkway. The interior was a rabbit warren of dingy hallways with sheets of paper - tacked onto various doors - identifying various agencies.
I stepped into one room claimed by Jewish Educational Media, where Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin showed me an array of multimedia archives of talks by the rebbe, plus video of almost every encounter he had had with the thousands of fans who had dropped by to see him on Sundays. He would give each a dollar bill, which they in turn were to contribute to charity.
The rebbe founded an amazing missionary corps of rabbinical couples who established beachheads of Jewish culture worldwide. I met such a couple in South Florida while reporting there in the early 1980s, and I've maintained contact with them to this day. Their synagogue turns 30 years old this month.
Other endings are not so happy. When terrorists attacked Jews in Mumbai in November 2008, it was a Chabad center that was targeted. Nine Jews died there.
I had long wanted to see the nerve center of the Chabad movement. A few hours later, the lower floor of 770, as they call it, overflowed with black-coated men saying prayers in preparation for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Up in the balcony in the women's section, a woman held out a card bearing Rabbi Schneerson's likeness, comparing him to the moshiach, the long-promised Jewish messiah.
A Lubavitch friend and I strolled through the snow up Kingston Avenue, "the Champs Elysees of the Lubavitch world," he told me, with delis, a bakery shop, Judaica stories, flower shops and butchers, all kosher. A glossy tourist brochure at a florist portrays a street map of where 43 shuls, or synagogues, can be found in a 77-square-block area.
Most impressive was the interactive Jewish Children's Museum across Kingston Avenue from the world headquarters. When the little ones enter on the third floor, they go through a walkway portraying the seven days of creation.
There were shofar-shaped microphones in front of an exhibit on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new-year holiday during which the shofar (ram's horn) is blown. There's an olive press to create oil for Hanukkah lamps, a chestful of Purim costumes and a kosher supermarket where children can practice selecting kosher products off the shelves.
Then there is a room devoted to observing the Sabbath, with computers instructing children how to construct a Sabbath menu and a talking wine bottle that describes how to say the kiddush blessing over the wine.
Lots of Christian youth groups visit the museum, I was told, because of its Bible-friendly atmosphere. And certainly, with a surrounding neighborhood and culture geared to making faith attractive, Crown Heights leaves the visitor almost wishing he or she could be Jewish.
Showing posts with label 770 Eastern Parkway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 770 Eastern Parkway. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday, February 02, 2009
Model 770 from your Internet Hobby Shop
NOW AVAILABLE IN KIT FORM!
"A Versatile HO Scale Structure Kit From Heljan
Raised brick detailing, simulated beveled-glass windows, decorative window frames, a varied roofline and a rooftop balcony are just some of the exquisite details on this new HO kit from Heljan.
Based on a historic building still in use in New York, this early-1900s structure also makes a great mansion, apartment, private school or upscale office. The kit features easy construction with only a small amount of gluing necessary, making it suitable for modelers of any skill level."
Interesting.
Wonder who got them the idea to pick 770, there are many more historic shuls out there.
"A Versatile HO Scale Structure Kit From Heljan
Raised brick detailing, simulated beveled-glass windows, decorative window frames, a varied roofline and a rooftop balcony are just some of the exquisite details on this new HO kit from Heljan.
Based on a historic building still in use in New York, this early-1900s structure also makes a great mansion, apartment, private school or upscale office. The kit features easy construction with only a small amount of gluing necessary, making it suitable for modelers of any skill level."
Interesting.
Wonder who got them the idea to pick 770, there are many more historic shuls out there.
My Elter Zeide and Lubavitch
By Jonathan Baker
ThanBook
As told by R’ Aaron Rakeffet, 4 Jan 2009.
Please follow title link for the full entry.
An example of transplanting the Alter Heim to the USA, rather than the translation of European Jewry for America which was the method of YU
The Rebbe was running away, the State Dept pulled him out of Poland, in 1940. Ads went out in the four Jewish dailies at the time, religious, secular, socialist, communist - “those of you that remember Lubavitch, the Rebbe is coming to America on this boat on this day, please greet him.” R’ Rakeffet’s cousin was there. A crowd came out about this. There’s video of this from Lubavitch. Maybe 5000 people came out, mostly not religious, they still knew what Lubavitch was, they had been raised Lubavitch, they remembered the cholent from Lubavitch.
The Rebbe came down, he couldn’t speak, he had had a stroke, his wife spoke for him in Yiddish, her translator was Rose Lieberman, Sharon Mintz’s (Mrs. R’ Adam) grandmother. As they wheeled the Rebbe in, someone strikes up a niggun from the Alter Heim. The Rebbe joins in. People started to cry, even distant from Yiddishkeit. And people swore they wouldn’t be mechallel shabbos then. The women would go to the beauty parlor on Saturday to do their hair for the movie palace Saturday night, the women became shomer shabbos when their kids went to yeshiva. Big thing, suddenly the husbands are going to be home on Saturday!
They brought him to the Greystone Hotel on the Upper West Side. Some of the older Chasidim came in to the Rebbe, told him “we have good news for you, in Lakewood there’s a nice community, warmer than NY, some wealthy Chasidim there, you can retire there, they’ll set you up nicely, and we’ll come farbreng with you once a month. At least you’re away from the Nazis, but New York is a waste of time.” I heard the Seventh Rebbe tell this story with my own ears (says R’ARR). This was shocking! Chasidim daring to tell the Rebbe to retire?
The next morning, they all come in to have breakfast with him, everyone is up & happy. The Rebbe tells them, “Chasidim don’t tell a rebbe what to do, the Rebbe tells the Chasidim what to do. “This is what I’m going to do. I’ll go to Lakewood, rest up for a month, and then we’re starting all over, and we’re going to prove that America can be exactly like the Alter Heim!” They thought he was nuts, but a Rebbe redt, speaks, you don’t say a word.
At the end of the month, he calls in the Chasidim, including Rose Lieberman, and her father R’ Cunin, the grandfather of the head shaliach in California today, and says to them, I want to open a shtibl in the finest neighborhood in New York City. So the Chasidim ask each other – how do we know what the finest neighborhood is? Where the biggest Conservative temple is! So that’s how Lubavitch came to Eastern Parkway, because the Brooklyn Jewish Center was right across the street, the biggest Conservative synagogue in the world.
********
Please follow title link for the full entry.
ThanBook
As told by R’ Aaron Rakeffet, 4 Jan 2009.
Please follow title link for the full entry.
An example of transplanting the Alter Heim to the USA, rather than the translation of European Jewry for America which was the method of YU
The Rebbe was running away, the State Dept pulled him out of Poland, in 1940. Ads went out in the four Jewish dailies at the time, religious, secular, socialist, communist - “those of you that remember Lubavitch, the Rebbe is coming to America on this boat on this day, please greet him.” R’ Rakeffet’s cousin was there. A crowd came out about this. There’s video of this from Lubavitch. Maybe 5000 people came out, mostly not religious, they still knew what Lubavitch was, they had been raised Lubavitch, they remembered the cholent from Lubavitch.
The Rebbe came down, he couldn’t speak, he had had a stroke, his wife spoke for him in Yiddish, her translator was Rose Lieberman, Sharon Mintz’s (Mrs. R’ Adam) grandmother. As they wheeled the Rebbe in, someone strikes up a niggun from the Alter Heim. The Rebbe joins in. People started to cry, even distant from Yiddishkeit. And people swore they wouldn’t be mechallel shabbos then. The women would go to the beauty parlor on Saturday to do their hair for the movie palace Saturday night, the women became shomer shabbos when their kids went to yeshiva. Big thing, suddenly the husbands are going to be home on Saturday!
They brought him to the Greystone Hotel on the Upper West Side. Some of the older Chasidim came in to the Rebbe, told him “we have good news for you, in Lakewood there’s a nice community, warmer than NY, some wealthy Chasidim there, you can retire there, they’ll set you up nicely, and we’ll come farbreng with you once a month. At least you’re away from the Nazis, but New York is a waste of time.” I heard the Seventh Rebbe tell this story with my own ears (says R’ARR). This was shocking! Chasidim daring to tell the Rebbe to retire?
The next morning, they all come in to have breakfast with him, everyone is up & happy. The Rebbe tells them, “Chasidim don’t tell a rebbe what to do, the Rebbe tells the Chasidim what to do. “This is what I’m going to do. I’ll go to Lakewood, rest up for a month, and then we’re starting all over, and we’re going to prove that America can be exactly like the Alter Heim!” They thought he was nuts, but a Rebbe redt, speaks, you don’t say a word.
At the end of the month, he calls in the Chasidim, including Rose Lieberman, and her father R’ Cunin, the grandfather of the head shaliach in California today, and says to them, I want to open a shtibl in the finest neighborhood in New York City. So the Chasidim ask each other – how do we know what the finest neighborhood is? Where the biggest Conservative temple is! So that’s how Lubavitch came to Eastern Parkway, because the Brooklyn Jewish Center was right across the street, the biggest Conservative synagogue in the world.
********
Please follow title link for the full entry.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Lubavitch Non-Messianists Win Court Battle
by Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Staff Writer
In the fight for control of 770 Eastern Parkway— the headquarters and heart of the Lubavitch movement, which has been the site of passionate and sometimes violent fights between messianists and non-messianists — a court decision last week has come down clearly on the side of the non-messianists.The strongly worded decision from Justice Ira Harkavy of New York State Supreme Court on Dec. 27 says that the only parties with the right to determine what happens at 770 are its owners, two of the movement’s central organizations, Agudas Chasedei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch (Association of Chabad Chasidim and the Lubavitch Educational Organization).The decision marks a victory for those in the movement who have been trying to marginalize the messianists — who believe in proclaiming the last, late Lubavitch rebbe as the messiah —since the faction began asserting itself when the rebbe was debilitated by a stroke in 1992, two years before he died. A spokesman for Agudas and Merkos, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said, “We’re very gratified by the court’s decision. We’re pained by the events that led us here and still harbor hopes that those responsible will recognize the error of their ways.” [follow link for the rest]
Staff Writer
In the fight for control of 770 Eastern Parkway— the headquarters and heart of the Lubavitch movement, which has been the site of passionate and sometimes violent fights between messianists and non-messianists — a court decision last week has come down clearly on the side of the non-messianists.The strongly worded decision from Justice Ira Harkavy of New York State Supreme Court on Dec. 27 says that the only parties with the right to determine what happens at 770 are its owners, two of the movement’s central organizations, Agudas Chasedei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch (Association of Chabad Chasidim and the Lubavitch Educational Organization).The decision marks a victory for those in the movement who have been trying to marginalize the messianists — who believe in proclaiming the last, late Lubavitch rebbe as the messiah —since the faction began asserting itself when the rebbe was debilitated by a stroke in 1992, two years before he died. A spokesman for Agudas and Merkos, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said, “We’re very gratified by the court’s decision. We’re pained by the events that led us here and still harbor hopes that those responsible will recognize the error of their ways.” [follow link for the rest]
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Chabad messianists lose court ruling
The leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch has won the right to eject a messianist congregation from the movement’s main synagogue. New York State’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch and Agudas Chassidei Chabad, two of Chabad’s three main bodies, giving them the right to eject Congregation Lubavitch Inc. from the synagogue located in the basement of 770 and 784-788 Eastern Parkway, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The sites represent the worldwide headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch.Although the defendants have the right to appeal within 60 days, the ruling gives legal backing to the 15-year struggle to stifle the movement's messianist wing.
The suit involves a conflict that began in 2004, when Merkos and Agudas sued individuals connected with the messianist congregation for defacing a plaque Merkos installed outside the synagogue that used the term “of blessed memory" to refer to the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Chasidic movement's longtime rebbe. The phrase offeneded those associated with Congregation Lubavitch Inc. who believe that Schneerson was the messiah, and thus is not technically dead.
In that first case, the court ruled in favor of Chabad’s leadership, declaring in June 2006 that Merkos and Agudas are the rightful owners of the entire property. The current suit was brought by Merkos and Agudas in order to give them the authority to physically remove the opposing congregation, and its four gabbais, or trustees, from the premises.
The suit involves a conflict that began in 2004, when Merkos and Agudas sued individuals connected with the messianist congregation for defacing a plaque Merkos installed outside the synagogue that used the term “of blessed memory" to refer to the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Chasidic movement's longtime rebbe. The phrase offeneded those associated with Congregation Lubavitch Inc. who believe that Schneerson was the messiah, and thus is not technically dead.
In that first case, the court ruled in favor of Chabad’s leadership, declaring in June 2006 that Merkos and Agudas are the rightful owners of the entire property. The current suit was brought by Merkos and Agudas in order to give them the authority to physically remove the opposing congregation, and its four gabbais, or trustees, from the premises.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Jamaican woman takes first few steps on path to Judaism in Brooklyn
On a blisteringly hot morning in early fall at the world synagogue headquarters of the Lubavitch hassidic movement, both the men's seating downstairs and the women's section upstairs were packed to the brim.
Women swayed back and forth in prayer, one hand holding a prayer book while the other pushed baby carriages. Men sat at desks and debated millennia-old legal questions posed in the Talmud. They, too, rocked back and forth.
Suddenly all activity came to a stop. The blast of a shofar had interrupted the activity, as it does every day at 770 Eastern Parkwayin Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the month of Elul. The jolting sound is meant to call Jews to repent for their sins. The Hebrew letters of the word Elul are believed to stand for a passage in the Song of Songs about a Jew's relationship with God: "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine."
At that moment Latoya Johnson, a graceful 28-year-old black woman from Jamaica, entered the women's section and sat down on a bench, smiling brightly at fellow worshipers. She was there to take her first steps towards becoming a Jew.
"The desire to talk to God was what drew me to Judaism," she said. "That is why I'm here."
Typically, the American convert to Judaism has joined the faith in order to marry another Jew. Not a proselytizing religion, Judaism does not see many gentiles wishing to convert for purely spiritual reasons. And it is a rare occasion indeed to see a West Indian immigrant seeking to be a part of the Lubavitch community that has had such a tense history with the substantial West Indian community in Crown Heights.
After immigrating to New York at 18, she enrolled in Brooklyn College where she interacted with Jews for the first time. Intrigued by people so different from her, she began to ask questions.
"I was so curious; I didn't know what Judaism was," she said in an interview. "They were trying to explain to me that it's not only a religion - it's also their lifestyle. I thought that was interesting. I wondered about the way they dress and why they wear certain things.
"I asked them to tell me more about their religion, and one thing that struck me was that Jews don't believe in Jesus. And I said, 'Why not?' The Jewish students said it's because Jesus was just a Jew himself - he was not a God. He was just a student in the yeshiva," she said. "At that point I said to myself, 'Hmm, that's interesting.'"
Johnson, raised in a Seventh Day Adventist community, then approached various pastors, hoping for guidance about what she had heard from her Jewish classmates - that Jesus was not God. She said the pastors brushed her off, saying that Jesus was God and the Jew would tell you he's not because they don't believe.
"One of the things that began to bother me about our tradition, our culture, is that you don't question anything when it pertains to God,"she said.
"But month after month, I realized that I'm really missing something in my soul," she said.
At a certain point, she stopped attending church altogether, and prayed to God - but not Jesus - at home.
"I just didn't have any connections when I was at church. I didn't feel I needed to go there. But I did know that I need to talk with God," she said.
All her life, she felt she had a special calling. "I always knew I had to do something different. I had to be someone. I felt like I was put here for a special reason. I had to be connected somewhere with God in a way that was close and direct. Christianity wasn't offering me that," she said.
"Jews are said to be the Chosen Ones, and I felt that I'm a chosen one in some way. I don't know how, but I felt I had some connection with God. I feel like I was chosen by God somehow. I knew that my soul needed to do something because I was closely connected to God."
She has yet to be accepted by a rabbi to begin the conversion process, but she is optimistic. "Everything happens for a reason, and I believe this is my path," she said.
She has spent much of her life in search of that path. The Seventh Day Adventist community in which she was raised wasn't entirely Christian.
Although they observed the Sabbath, her family did not worship Jesus. "My family worshiped Claudius Henry, a Rastafarian leader," she said."I distinctly remember getting 'washed' for Claudius Henry when I was 4 years old." At 10 she was sent to live in another part of Jamaica with an aunt who belonged to the Church of God movement and began worshipping there.
"I even got baptized at Church of God at age 14. I remembered at the time I really loved God. I was really into God and was into doing the right thing," she recalled.
Four years later, she immigrated to Canarsie, New York, with her mother, who had decided to join a Pentecostal church. "I remember it was 1997 and I went to church with her for one year, and I realized in her church it was all about fashion - who had the best job, the best car," she says. She finally gave up and told her mother that her church was full of hypocrites. After her discussions with her Jewish classmates at Brooklyn College, she began to observe Jewish dietary laws and has kept Shabbat for the last three years.
"This challenge was put in front of me for a reason," she said of the road still ahead of her. Perhaps one day in the future, in another year during the month of Elul, she will be present in synagogue to hear the shofar blasts, this time as a Jew, so the ancient words from the Song of Songs will ring true for her: "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine."
Women swayed back and forth in prayer, one hand holding a prayer book while the other pushed baby carriages. Men sat at desks and debated millennia-old legal questions posed in the Talmud. They, too, rocked back and forth.
Suddenly all activity came to a stop. The blast of a shofar had interrupted the activity, as it does every day at 770 Eastern Parkwayin Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the month of Elul. The jolting sound is meant to call Jews to repent for their sins. The Hebrew letters of the word Elul are believed to stand for a passage in the Song of Songs about a Jew's relationship with God: "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine."
At that moment Latoya Johnson, a graceful 28-year-old black woman from Jamaica, entered the women's section and sat down on a bench, smiling brightly at fellow worshipers. She was there to take her first steps towards becoming a Jew.
"The desire to talk to God was what drew me to Judaism," she said. "That is why I'm here."
Typically, the American convert to Judaism has joined the faith in order to marry another Jew. Not a proselytizing religion, Judaism does not see many gentiles wishing to convert for purely spiritual reasons. And it is a rare occasion indeed to see a West Indian immigrant seeking to be a part of the Lubavitch community that has had such a tense history with the substantial West Indian community in Crown Heights.
After immigrating to New York at 18, she enrolled in Brooklyn College where she interacted with Jews for the first time. Intrigued by people so different from her, she began to ask questions.
"I was so curious; I didn't know what Judaism was," she said in an interview. "They were trying to explain to me that it's not only a religion - it's also their lifestyle. I thought that was interesting. I wondered about the way they dress and why they wear certain things.
"I asked them to tell me more about their religion, and one thing that struck me was that Jews don't believe in Jesus. And I said, 'Why not?' The Jewish students said it's because Jesus was just a Jew himself - he was not a God. He was just a student in the yeshiva," she said. "At that point I said to myself, 'Hmm, that's interesting.'"
Johnson, raised in a Seventh Day Adventist community, then approached various pastors, hoping for guidance about what she had heard from her Jewish classmates - that Jesus was not God. She said the pastors brushed her off, saying that Jesus was God and the Jew would tell you he's not because they don't believe.
"One of the things that began to bother me about our tradition, our culture, is that you don't question anything when it pertains to God,"she said.
"But month after month, I realized that I'm really missing something in my soul," she said.
At a certain point, she stopped attending church altogether, and prayed to God - but not Jesus - at home.
"I just didn't have any connections when I was at church. I didn't feel I needed to go there. But I did know that I need to talk with God," she said.
All her life, she felt she had a special calling. "I always knew I had to do something different. I had to be someone. I felt like I was put here for a special reason. I had to be connected somewhere with God in a way that was close and direct. Christianity wasn't offering me that," she said.
"Jews are said to be the Chosen Ones, and I felt that I'm a chosen one in some way. I don't know how, but I felt I had some connection with God. I feel like I was chosen by God somehow. I knew that my soul needed to do something because I was closely connected to God."
She has yet to be accepted by a rabbi to begin the conversion process, but she is optimistic. "Everything happens for a reason, and I believe this is my path," she said.
She has spent much of her life in search of that path. The Seventh Day Adventist community in which she was raised wasn't entirely Christian.
Although they observed the Sabbath, her family did not worship Jesus. "My family worshiped Claudius Henry, a Rastafarian leader," she said."I distinctly remember getting 'washed' for Claudius Henry when I was 4 years old." At 10 she was sent to live in another part of Jamaica with an aunt who belonged to the Church of God movement and began worshipping there.
"I even got baptized at Church of God at age 14. I remembered at the time I really loved God. I was really into God and was into doing the right thing," she recalled.
Four years later, she immigrated to Canarsie, New York, with her mother, who had decided to join a Pentecostal church. "I remember it was 1997 and I went to church with her for one year, and I realized in her church it was all about fashion - who had the best job, the best car," she says. She finally gave up and told her mother that her church was full of hypocrites. After her discussions with her Jewish classmates at Brooklyn College, she began to observe Jewish dietary laws and has kept Shabbat for the last three years.
"This challenge was put in front of me for a reason," she said of the road still ahead of her. Perhaps one day in the future, in another year during the month of Elul, she will be present in synagogue to hear the shofar blasts, this time as a Jew, so the ancient words from the Song of Songs will ring true for her: "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine."
Monday, October 08, 2007
Gabrielle Berlinger Wins Essay Prize
Congratulations to Gabrielle Berlinger, who is the co-winner of the student essay prize awarded annually by the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society, in collaboration with the Committee on the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism of the American Anthropological Association. A graduate student in the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Gabi won with her essay “770 Eastern Parkway: Brooklyn Brownstone, Sacred Space.” The paper is part of her larger research project, which seeks to understand the nature and significance of contemporary Jewish architectural practices. According to prize committee chair Simon Bronner: “The committee praised its exploration of an emergent tradition and its construction by a folk group.” The paper, which looks at the worldwide replication of the Brooklyn building that is the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, is now slated for publication in the Jewish Cultural Studies book series.
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