Chabad-Lubavitch Policy During the Holocaust
During the Holocaust, Chabad played a unique and sometimes troublesome role. This role is not widely known,
although it has been explored in scholarly articles and books, most notably Bryan Mark Rigg's "Rescued From The Reich",
published by Yale University Press, and on many blogs such as Failed Messiah.
Lets itemize Chabad's behavior during the Holocaust, drawn largely from Rigg's book (except for #1), so the discussion points will be clear:
1. In the early Summer of 1939, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn (here after referred to by the acronym of his name, the Rayyatz),
the sixth grand rabbi or rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, was asked by parents of several American students about sending their children to study in
Chabad's main yeshiva (rabbinical school) in a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. The parents were afraid
to send their children because many people believed a war would take place between Germany and its neighbors, including Poland.
The Rayyatz answered that it was safe to send the students and he personally guaranteed the parents that there would be no war.
On August 1, Germany invaded Poland. The Jewish orphanage across the street was hit by German shells. The yeshiva students watched
in horror as children's body parts flew through the air.
The Rayyatz, who was based near the yeshiva, fled, leaving his students, including the young Americans, to fend for themselves.
Many ended up escaping Europe by tagging along with the Mir Yeshiva, which was able to escape by going to, of all places, Japan.
2. The Rayyatz was rescued in 1940 by the US Government, which had been convinced to act by Chabad followers' claims that the
Rayyatz was the "Jewish pope" of all "protestant Jews." The US was able to do this because it was not yet at war with Germany.
When the Rayyatz was brought to safety in Latvia, he asked US officials to go back to Poland and rescue his books, his household
goods, and his silver. He made no mention of rescuing his yeshiva students or any other Jews or oppressed minorities.
3. From Latvia, the Rayyatz went to New York City, where he was given a hero's welcome by his followers and others. On disembarking
from the ship that brought him to these shores, the Rayyatz declared that America would not be different, meaning that the hasidism and shtetl
ultra-Orthodoxy of Eastern Europe would be established here.
The Rayyatz settled in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and began to work with the Vaad Hatzolah, the ultra-Orthodox rescue organization that
was, among other things, financially supporting the Mir Yeshiva in Shanghai.
But the Rayyatz had a falling out with the Vaad Hatzolah over money. The Rayyatz expected that whatever amount of money he raised
in their name would be used for support or rescue of his followers alone, something no other hasidic rebbe or non-hasidic Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox
leader expected. The Vaad Hatzolah used the money where it felt it could do the most good, or where there was the most immediate need, regardless of the affiliation.
The Rayyatz stopped working with the Vaad Hatzolah and launched his own rescue organization which he advertised in Chabad publications
distributed throughout the NYC area. The ads stressed the need to save the lives of those Jews trapped in Europe.
But Chabad-Lubavitch had little success in saving anyone, far less than the successes of the Vaad Hatzolah.
The Rayyatz continued to raise money for rescue, but he spent that money supporting his Brooklyn yeshiva.
At the same time, the Rayyatz began a campaign attacking the Vaad Hatzolah for working with non-Orthodox Jewish leaders, who he blamed
for causing the Holocaust by leading Jews astray, and for what he considered to be "desecration" of Jewish law. That "descration" was raising money on
Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, to save lives, something Jewish law not only permits, but mandates.
In those days, the only time large numbers of Jews could be reached quickly was on Shabbat and Jewish holidays when they congreagated
in synagogues. Leading rabbis allowed the Vaad Hatzolah to raise funds during prayer services and many rabbis, including hasidic rabbis and other
ultra-Orthodox rabbis, would send their congregants home to write checks or get money, and have then immediately return to the synagogue where a
Vaad Hatzolah representative would collect the money and take it to the Vaad Hatzolah office. This involved multiple violations of Shabbat.
But Jewish law has an overriding factor that trumps Shabbat law and most other Jewish laws, saving life. In fact, Jews are
mandated under Jewish law to violate Shabbat to save lives.
The Rayyatz criticized the Vaad Hatzolah's efforts, claiming they would only make things worse and that only a full return
of Jews to strictly keeping the Torah's commandments and Jewish law would bring the messiah who would then save the Jews of Europe.
Earthly efforts like the Vaad Hatzolah's would not be effective, the Rayyatz insisted, and would delay the coming of the messiah.
4. During the war, the Rayyatz wrote letters to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While he mentioned the war and his
own rescue facilitated by the US, the Rayyatz never asked the president to do anything to help the Jews of Europe let alone rescue anyone.
The Chabad Rebbe "Justified" The Holocaust:
A "Surgery" Necessary To Save The Jewish People
Article reprinted from Haaretz: G-d as surgeon by Yehuda Bauer
The Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson described the Holocaust by comparing G-d to a surgeon who amputates a patient's
limb in order to save his life.
The panel discussion on "Haredim and the Holocaust" recently (May 2007) aired on Israeli TV Channel 1 should have included
the views of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Chabad's so-called "King Messiah"), Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
On the subject of the Holocaust, the Rebbe wrote as follows: "It is clear that 'no evil descends from Above,' and buried within torment and suffering
is a core of exalted spiritual good. Not all human beings are able to perceive it, but it is very much there. So it is not impossible for the physical destruction of
the Holocaust to be spiritually beneficial. On the contrary, it is quite possible that physical affliction is good for the spirit" ("Mada Ve'emuna," Machon Lubavitch,
1980, Kfar Chabad).
Schneerson goes on to compare G-d to a surgeon who amputates a patient's limb in order to save his life. The limb "is incurably diseased ... The Holy
One Blessed Be He, like the professor-surgeon...seeks the good of Israel, and indeed, all He does is done for the good.... In the spiritual sense, no harm was done,
because the everlasting spirit of the Jewish people was not destroyed."
The Rebbe's stance, therefore, is clear: The Holocaust was a good thing because it lopped off a disease-ravaged limb of the Jewish people - in other
words, the millions who perished in the Holocaust - in order to cleanse the Jewish people of its sins.
There is logic in this theology: If G-d is indeed omnipotent, knows everything and controls the world ("G-d presides over the trials of 6 billion
people all day long, every day without a moment's rest"), which implies divine supervision on an individual and collective basis, then the Holocaust took place not
only with his knowledge, but also with his approval.
Schneerson does not accept the idea of "hester panim," or G-d's face being turned away, to explain why He was not present when 1.5 million Jewish
children were murdered. According to some religious Jews, this hester panim was a consequence of man's sins, and, above all, the sins of the Jewish people. Schneerson
says that G-d was there, and that he wanted to Holocaust to happen. But because it is inconceivable, in his view, for G-d to commit evil, he portrays the Holocaust as
a positive event, all the more so for the Jews.
After this text was published in the summer of 1980, kicking up a storm, Chabad claimed it was based on an inaccurate Hebrew translation of talks that
the Rebbe delivered in Yiddish. The Rebbe, they said, had no idea his remarks were being published. It seems hard to believe Schneerson would not go over every word
published in his name, let alone a text put out in Hebrew by Machon Lubavitch in Kfar Chabad.
In fact, there is a document written by the Rebbe himself, in Hebrew, which bears his statements about the Holocaust. The late Chaika Grossman,
a leader of the underground in the Bialystok ghetto, who survived the war and served as a Knesset member for several terms, published an article in Hamishmar newspaper
on August 22, 1980, quoting Schneerson and expressing her profound shock at his words. On August 28, 1980, the Rebbe sent her a reply on his personal stationary. The
letter, apparently typewritten, contains a number of corrections in his own handwriting, and is signed by him. In it, the Rebbe confirms everything in the published text.
His remarks, Schneerson explained, were based on the Torah. Hitler was a messenger of G-d in the same sense that Nebuchadnezzar is called "G-d's servant"
in the Book of Jeremiah (chapter 25). The "surgery" he spoke of was such a massive corrective procedure that the suffering (i.e., the murder of the Jews) was minor compared
to its curative effect.
I was invited to take part in this television debate, but my appearance was canceled at the last moment, perhaps because of my opinions on the subject. The
truth is, there are no "Haredim." There are Haredi groups and Haredi individuals, and their conduct during and after the Holocaust took different forms. Since the Holocaust,
Jews have wrestled with this issue and continue to do so. Rabbi Schneerson's views are one of many.
But Chabad is a large and influential Hasidic dynasty. It has a messiah who lived and died, and many look forward to his resurrection. In this respect,
Chabad is a kind of semi-Christian movement. Therefore it is important to know what its leader said. The "King Messiah" did not deny the Holocaust. He justified it.
The author is a Holocaust scholar.
[Note: This article was published in Haaretz. Haaretz often changes the url of
its articles or pulls them from its website. This appears to have something to do with the architecture of the website. This article is too important to be lost that way.]
A Final Note: Why did people participate in, authorize, or tacitly accept the killing during the Holocaust?
And why do people participate in, authorize, ignore, or tacitly accept the crimes of the Chabad Mafia today?
Obedience!
Stanley Milgram was one of a number of post-war psychologists and sociologists who tried to address why people obeyed immoral
orders in the Holocaust. Milgram's findings demonstrated that reasonable people, when instructed by a person in a position of
authority, obeyed commands entailing what they believed to be the death or suffering of others. These results were confirmed
in other experiments as well, such as the Stanford prison experiment.
Ironically, and regretfully, Chabad uses the same psychological methods and mind control techniques as the Nazis did...
And as the Islamist terrorists do today... The truth must be told, because it's much more important to protect the lives of innocent Jewish
children, than to protect a very dangerous religious cult, a gang of criminals, drug dealers, and child abusers, fake Jews who are disguised
as Rabbis, and who commit crimes against children...
Functionalism versus Intentionalism
A major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies is the question of functionalism versus intentionalism. The terms were coined
in a 1981 article by the British Marxist historian Timothy Mason to describe two schools of thought about the origins of the
Holocaust. Intentionalists hold that the Holocaust was the result of a long-term masterplan on the part of Hitler and that
Hitler was the driving force behind the Holocaust. Functionalists hold that Hitler was anti-Semitic, but that he did not have
a masterplan for genocide. Functionalists see the Holocaust as coming from below in the ranks of the German bureaucracy with
little or no involvement on the part of Hitler. Functionalists stress that the Nazi anti-Semitic policy was constantly evolving
in ever more radical directions and the end product was the Holocaust.
The Sick Chabad Ideology is Evolving
in a Similar Way to the Sick Nazi Ideology...
Recently, a synthesis of the two schools has emerged that has been championed by such diverse historians such as the
Canadian historian Michael Marrus, the Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer and the British historian Ian Kershaw that contends that Hitler
was the driving force behind the Holocaust, but that he did not have a long-term plan and that much of the initiative for the Holocaust
came from below in an effort to meet Hitler's perceived wishes.
Source: The Holocaust
The Chabad Rebbe was the driving force behind his messianic movement,
but much of the initiative for Chabad crimes today come from his
followers in an effort to meet their Moshiach's wishes...
You draw your own conclusions...
Contest: A $100,000 US Dollar prize will be paid to anyone who can find even one respectable
Israeli Rabbi who says that Chabad is Jewish. You will never find any such Rabbi, but try
to find it anyway as an educational exercise if you still think that Chabad is Jewish.
!!! CHABAD IS BAD FOR THE JEWS !!!
!!! JUST SAY NO TO CHABAD !!!
Disclaimer: Please conduct your own investigation about the issues mentioned in this website.
This website is only a brief summary of the problems with Chabad. For more information, please
talk to your local community Rabbi. Also, if you really care about being Jewish,
come live in Israel and study Judaism.
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and to save Jewish lives and Jewish souls from being destroyed by Chabad. Therefore,
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