Behind Chabad Fundraising, A Stealth Security Campaign

by Adam Dickter
Assistant Managing Editor

In the weeks since the Mumbai terrorist attack, the Chabad movement has directed contributions from supporters primarily to two campaigns: One to aid the child whose emissary parents were slain, and another to rebuild the badly damaged outreach center and re-establish operations there, which could cost as much as $1 million, according to a Chabad estimate.

But at the same time, some Chabad leaders are acting on their own to secure funds and resources to make dozens of Chabad houses in far-flung outposts safer.

A group of emissaries in southeast Asia, led by Rabbi Yosef Kantor, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand, has launched a campaign aimed at improving security at their centers, and distributed donation cards at Lubavitch world headquarters in CrownHeights, Brooklyn, last week.

And Rabbi Shea Hecht, a member of a prominent Chabad family well entrenched in the emissary movement, told The Jewish Week he has been working the phones since the tragedy to try to arrange security upgrades and protection.

“Security has to be the No. 1 priority,” said Rabbi Hecht of the Lubavitch-run Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. “If you are not alive, it doesn’t make much difference if you can put bread on the table. One you stay alive, you can worry about the bread.

“If any of us could spend a million dollars to save just one soul, isn't it worth it?”
Rabbi Hecht, who is one of 12 siblings and has six children, and whose wife also comes from a large family, has more relatives than he can count working as emissaries of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, trying to promote Jewish observance.

“In my family alone we are talking about tens and tens of shluchim,” he said, using the Hebrew word for emissary. “Among my immediate friends, tens and tens [more] shluchim. The Hechts are not people who sit on the sidelines. We roll up our sleeves and get the job done.”

While not in any way criticizing the central Chabad operation, Rabbi Hecht, who has developed many political connections in New York, said he expected many emissaries to reach out to him for advice and wanted to have information available for them.

“When they call me, I want to have a file with a lot of information,” he said.
He said he hoped to meet with members of the security consulting firm run by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and had already spoken with another top consulting firm, Kroll Security Group, for help in securing the centers. Spokepersons for both agencies did not return calls for comment.

The spokesman for Chabad, Zalman Shmotkin, would not comment on any fundraising for security. “It is still, unfortunately, too early to discuss these efforts,” he said on Tuesday night.

Rabbi Hecht said that supporters of Chabad around the world were responding generously in the wake of the Mumbai tragedy and that some of them had requested that donations be used for security. He said one of his sons, an emissary in upstate New York, had received such a contribution.

“It wasn’t exactly earmarked, but it was suggested that some of the money be used that way,” said Rabbi Hecht.

While stressing that no one in the movement believed that Chabad centers were more at risk than any other Jewish organization, he said that individual Chabad centers should assess their own security needs and decide how much of the money they raise should be used for security.

“There is a big difference between those in New York City or L.A. or other places in the U.S. and those in Asian countries or African countries,” he said. “There are some that have to be very careful what they do and how they do it. An assessment has to be made on many levels, and I am doing my own study.”
Since the tragedy, the Chabad movement has conducted an orchestrated marketing and public relations campaign. Chabad officials in New York and emissaries around the world are conducting media interviews, and constituents who have been touched by the movement are reaching out in droves to local and international publications to extol its praises.

Chabad handpicked emissaries to speak with the media that officials believed would best represent the movement to a general public that may have had little or no knowledge about it.

The message was twofold: Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, the emissaries killed in Mumbai, would have wanted their deaths to inspire and bring Jews closer to Chabad and Judaism, and the movement’s late spiritual leader, Rabbi Schneerson, taught that it was a religious obligation to take a dark moment and turn it into a positive.

The strategy is to help the audience to “become a continuum of the holy world of Gavi and Rivkah so that they have a way to channel their own personal grief in a manner that makes this world a better place,” Shmotkin told JTA. “A shaliach has to be able to sensitively and articulately convey the basic messages of urging people to increase their own acts of goodness and kindness” in response to tragedy.
Within a week of the attacks, Chabad had raised about $1 million through mailboxes it had opened on Chabad.org.

“[The fundraising] is an opportunity to connect more and more Jews to the mission, and to the Rebbe’s mission of getting every Jew involved. And part of that is channeling the empathy people are now feeling,” said Rabbi Kantor, the director of the Chabad of Thailand, who helped establish the movement’s presence in Mumbai prior to the Holtzbergs’ arrival.

“I see this as being a big package or opportunity to be able to inspire and direct Jews on how they can channel their outpouring of support and sympathy, their emotion, rage, outrage and frustration,” he said.

While the immediate fundraising was geared toward helping the toddler and rebuilding in Mumbai, the stepped-up publicity may also prove to be a boon for Chabad houses. Chabad emissaries usually receive minimal seed money to start their outposts, but each house is responsible for raising its own budget each year. Though Chabad does not keep a formal database on how much each outpost raises, officials estimate that the emissaries combined take in more than $1 billion per year.
JTA contributed to this report.

Finance Ministry May Fund Security for Chabad Houses

MK (UTJ) Rabbi Yaakov Litzman met with treasury official Ram Belinkov, who explained the Finance Ministry is looking into the possibility of funding security for Chabad houses around the world.

Apparently Litzman began seeking funding for Chabad houses around the world before the Mumbai terror attack and he is now pushing the request again, explaining the need to provide funding for the Chabad network. Litzman maintains good relations with a number of senior treasury officials, including Belinkov, who has indicated he is willing to seek a source of funding for the NIS 2 million needed to assist with security in Chabad houses.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)

Emergency Appeal for the family of Benzion Kruman hy"d

Please click on the headline to make your donation to the surviving family.

Editor
http://770EasternParkway.com

Rabbi Benzion Kruman, a devoted husband and loving father of three young children ranging in age from two months - five years was murdered by terrorists this past week. His work as a mashgiach took him from his home in Israel to Mumbai. R' Benzion was about to leave for the airport when he stopped in the Chabad house for the afternoon Mincha prayers. Unfortunately this short stop ended in his tragic murder. His death has left his family bereft of his presence and financially destitute. It is incumbent upon on us all to feel their pain and help shoulder their burden. A committee was formed to set up a fund to benefit R' Benzion's wife and children.

Please open your heart and send a generous donation to the Kruman Foundation. May Hashem heal the pain of all of Klal Yisroel and avenge of the Kedoshim.

National Committee


Prof. Aaron Twerski
Brooklyn Law School


Rabbi Yechiel Kaufman
Congregation Anshe Sfard


Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld
Young Israel Kew Garden hills


Rabbi Berish Goldenberg
Principal of Yeshiva Rav Isacsohn-Torath Emeth Academy, Los Angeles CA


Rabbi Shmeul Feurst
Head Rabbi of AGUDAH of Chicago Illinois