The shekel drops / Missionaries in Ramat Aviv

The battle raging Ramat Aviv isn't just about the neighborhood's character. It's a battle over Israel's image.

By Nehemia Shtrasler

The sight was elevating: 800 neighborhood residents took a break from what they were doing and went out to demonstrate. Their goal: to protect their homes. They weren't asking for much: just to maintain their way of life, the character of their neighborhood, their values, dignity and right to educate their children as they see fit.

Nobody was paying them. They had no political party or foreign sponsors. They collected the money to fund their demonstration themselves because they knew that if they didn't, the missionary group Chabad could continue to slowly take the neighborhood over, just as is happening in Migdal Ha'emek, Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem.

A few people set up a counter-demonstration against the 800. They believe that the people in question are merely "good Jews" who just rented a few apartments to preach Torah there. All they want is for us to put on tefillin a little, to light candles on Friday night. What charming simplicity.

They don't realize that it's a well-organized plan to take control of the neighborhood. They aren't even aware that a yeshiva opened in the neighborhood staffed by "messengers" who are prepared to sacrifice their souls for their Rebbe.

These "messengers" have one explicit goal: to return the people of the neighborhood to Judaism. The more Jews keep the Sabbath and follow the mitzvoth, the faster the Messiah will come. Though actually he already did come, in the form of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, according to Chabad. The Rebbe has died in the meantime, but he lives on - their belief system is a mystical, un-Jewish thing, about which the Rabbi Shach commented: "Chabad is the cult closest to Judaism."

As in every neighborhood, here too they identified the most vulnerable point: the young. That's why every Friday they ply the grove by the Alliance school, trying to persuade the children to put on tefillin and drop by the Chabad House for a "conversation." At night they lurk among the trees and on benches for the teens, offering refreshments and sweet talk. They cunningly tell these kids, "You have the soul of a righteous person," and don't cavil at saying that their mothers and fathers are sinners. They even whisper that people who don't honor Shabbat are doomed to hell.

Puberty is a vulnerable stage and some of these kids, who want to rebel against their parents anyway, listen. The nice people of Chabad have no problem taking in a youngster and destroying a family in Israel.

Where are the police and the municipality as strangers badger children among the trees at night?

The Chabadniks understand that the middle class is groaning under its burdens. So they opened a few kindergartens in the neighborhood that charge little and give much, including a hot meal. Some parents succumbed to the temptation - and lost their children. This neighborhood sorely lacks kindergartens without religious affiliation. But the city allows Chabad to open one kindergarten after another, even at the expense of a building that had been a cultural center until two years ago.

These Chabadniks with their butter-wouldn't-melt smiles have no problem flouting the law. They rent apartments and turn them into studios. They build without permits, establish hostels and mikvas in violation of municipal ordinances, but the city doesn't block them. Mayor Ron Huldai did denounce Chabad in Ramat Aviv, saying they were harassing the residents. But his job is to stop the harassment, not just talk about it.

Imagine what would happen to me if I went to Kfar Chabad, rented an apartment and dared to open a class to teach a modern interpretation of the Bible, or women's rights or Darwinism. In the evening I'd go out and roam the neighborhood, trying to persuade their children to visit my home on Shabbat to see what a nonobservant Jew does on the day of rest.

Soon enough you'd have to visit me at the burn ward at Ichilov Hospital, if not worse.

And if all that happened, the good souls among us would say: Why did he have to interfere in their way of life? Why provoke them?

But when they come from Kfar Chabad to Ramat Aviv, these same good souls say, in the name of an artificial, suicidal liberalism, "We should understand them," and, "We mustn't oppose others because that is unenlightened racism."

Only they are allowed to sell their rotten goods, rife with ignorance, superstition, terrible discrimination against women, bottomless hatred of Arabs and Gentiles, and nonsense about the Messiah. We may not even protect our values of humanism, education, rationalism, equality, literature and the great inventions of science that changed the face of mankind.

The battle in Ramat Aviv isn't just about the neighborhood's character. It's a battle over Israel's image, and the 800 residents who got up and left their homes and went out to demonstrate last Monday are just the harbingers.

In Mumbai's shadow, Chabad cast in new light on Hanukkah

By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter

To many in this area, the Chabad Lubavitch movement may have been best known — if at all — for the large menorah displays it sponsors each year in public places such as Westlake Park and the state Capitol.

But this year, after terrorists targeted the Chabad center in Mumbai, India, and killed a rabbi and his wife, e-mails of condolence have poured into Chabad centers, including those in Washington state.

Strangers at grocery stores have stopped to express sorrow and offer their respects, said Rabbi Sholom Ber Levitin, regional director of the Chabad movement in the Pacific Northwest. "We've had a tremendous outpouring from the Jewish community and beyond."

The Mumbai attacks, along with the annual menorah displays — including lightings today at Westlake Park and the Capitol to coincide with this evening's start of Hanukkah — have put a spotlight on Chabad.

The at-times controversial movement has remained relatively unknown despite its dramatic growth in the past decade and its extensive worldwide outreach.

Chabad Lubavitch is a branch within Orthodox Judaism's Hasidic movement, which emphasizes devotion in prayer and joyous celebration of God in everyday activities.

The word "Chabad" comes from an acronym of the Hebrew words for wisdom, comprehension and knowledge, while the name "Lubavitch" comes from the Russian town where the group's founders were based.

The black fedoras and long beards worn by Lubavitch men come in part from the customary dress of that place and time, and in part from commandments in the Torah.

The Chabad Lubavitch organization, which has its worldwide headquarters in Brooklyn, reaches out to nonpracticing Jews. It believes God wants people to make themselves and the world more holy by doing acts of kindness and other good deeds, called mitzvot.

Lubavitchers see themselves as mentoring Jews, deepening their faith and practice, and guiding them to "their innate soul," which can be revealed by performing mitzvot, Levitin said. Also, they believe that each time a Jew performs such a deed, it brings closer the arrival of the Messiah.

As part of its outreach, the organization sponsors thousands of menorah displays worldwide. Chabad leaders say the displays are symbols of religious tolerance over oppression, and that many who have seen them have been touched. But it's also a practice that's been regarded as controversial by many Jews — even before it led to various "War on Christmas" brouhahas, including in 2006 when a Chabad rabbi requested a giant menorah be put up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Instead, Port officials took down the Port's Christmas trees, prompting a national furor.

"We strongly believe in the separation of church and state," said Rabbi Anson Laytner, executive director of the Greater Seattle Chapter of the American Jewish Committee. "Most Jewish organizations see what Chabad is doing as being a blurring of that line to the detriment of all of us: Jews, Christians, atheists, everyone."

Another point of contention between Chabad and other Jewish groups is that some Lubavitchers regard the former head of the movement, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as the Messiah. That's not a position the movement itself teaches, Levitin said.

What the movement does emphasize is re-engaging unaffiliated Jews all over the world. It has about 4,000 "emissary" families — typically a rabbi, his wife and their family — in 73 countries, including Serbia, South Korea and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Passover seders have been held in places from Nepal to Peru.

On average, four new couples set out to somewhere around the globe, and more than two Chabad institutions are established, each week, according to the organization.

In Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, offered services such as classes on Judaism, Shabbat services and kosher meals.

Chabad leaders, through their Web site www.chabad.org, are encouraging people to perform mitzvot in the Holtzbergs' honor. Thousands of people have pledged to do everything from saying a prayer to studying the Torah.

In addition, about $1 million has come in to help raise the Holtzbergs' children and to help rebuild Chabad of Mumbai. And about 10 Lubavitch couples have already applied to go to Mumbai to continue the Holtzbergs' work.

In Washington state, where there are 16 Chabad rabbis and a presence in various counties, the organization held a memorial the weekend after the attacks.

At the public menorah lightings this week, the rabbis will say a few words about the Holtzbergs.

And "we've rededicated our work in their memory," Levitin said. "Chabad all over the world has recommitted itself to do more and more goodness and kindness."

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company