Lubavitcher Rebbe

Chabad
חב״ד
	Group picture of Chabad Shluchim (emissaries) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Formation	1775 (249 years ago)
Founder	Schneur Zalman of Liadi
Founded at	Liozno, Russian Empire
Type	Jewish religious movement; Religious organization;
Purpose	educational, philanthropic, religious studies, spirituality
Headquarters	770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Region served	Worldwide
Membership (2018)	90,000–95,000
Key people	Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Secessions	Strashelye, Kopust, Liadi, Niezhin, Avrutch, Malachim
Affiliations	Hasidic Judaism
Website	chabad.org; lubavitch.com;

Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch^[2] (US: /xəˈbɑːd luˈbɑːvɪtʃ/; Hebrew: חב״ד לובביץּ׳; Yiddish: חב״ד ליובאוויטש), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups^[3] as well as one of the largest Jewish religious organizations in the world. Unlike most Haredi groups, which are self-segregating, Chabad mainly operates in the wider world and it caters to secularized Jews.

Founded in 1775^[4] by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the name "Chabad" (חב״ד) is an acronym formed from three Hebrew words—Chokhmah, Binah, Da'at, the first three sefirot of the kabbalistic Tree of Life: חכמה, בינה, דעת, "Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge"—which represent the intellectual and kabbalistic underpinnings of the movement.^[5]^[6] The name Lubavitch derives from the town in which the now-dominant line of leaders resided from 1813 to 1915.^[7]^[8] Other, non-Lubavitch scions of Chabad either disappeared or merged into the Lubavitch line. In the 1930s, the sixth Rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, moved the center of the Chabad movement from Russia to Poland. After the outbreak of World War II, he moved the center of the movement to the United States.

Between 1951 and 1994, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson transformed the movement into one of the most widespread Jewish movements in the world. Under his leadership, Chabad established a large network of institutions that seek to satisfy the religious, social and humanitarian needs of Jews across the world.^[9] Chabad institutions provide outreach to unaffiliated Jews and humanitarian aid, as well as religious, cultural and educational activities. During his life and after his death, Schneerson has been believed by some of his followers to be the Messiah, with his own position on the matter debated among scholars. Messianic ideology in Chabad sparked controversy in various Jewish communities and it is still an unresolved matter. Following his death, no successor was appointed as a new central leader.

The global population of Chabad has been estimated to be 90,000–95,000 adherents, accounting for 13% of the global Hasidic population.^[1] However, up to one million Jews are estimated to attend Chabad services at least once a year.^[10]^[11] In a 2020 study, the Pew Research Center found that 16% of American Jews participated in Chabad services or activities at least semi-regularly.^[12]

History

The Chabad movement was established after the First Partition of Poland in the town of Liozno, Pskov Governorate, Russian Empire (now Liozna, Belarus), in 1775, by Shneur Zalman,^[4] a student of Dov Ber of Mezeritch, the successor to Hasidism's founder, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov. Rabbi Dovber Shneuri, the Second Rebbe, moved the movement to Lyubavichi (Yiddish: Lubavitch), in current-day Russia, in 1813.^[7]

The movement was centered in Lyubavichi for a century until the fifth Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Dovber left the village in 1915^[8] and moved to the city of Rostov-on-Don. During the interwar period, following Bolshevik persecution, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, under the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, was centered in Riga and then in Warsaw. The outbreak of World War II led the Sixth Rebbe to move to the United States. Since 1940,^[4] the movement's center has been in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.^[13]^[14]

While the movement spawned a number of offshoot groups throughout its history, the Chabad-Lubavitch branch is the only one still active, making it the movement's main surviving line.^[15] Historian Jonathan Sarna has characterized Chabad as having enjoyed the fastest rate of growth of any Jewish religious movement in the period 1946–2015.^[16]

In the early 1900s, Chabad-Lubavitch legally incorporated itself under Agudas Chasidei Chabad ("Association of Chabad Hasidim").^{[citation needed]}

In the 1980s, tensions arose between Chabad and Satmar Chasidim as a result of several assaults on Chabad Hasidim by Satmar Hasidim.^[17]^[18]^[19]

Oppression and resurgence in Russia

The Chabad movement was subjected to governmental oppression in Russia. The Russian government, first under the Czar, later under the Bolsheviks, imprisoned all but one of the Chabad rebbes.^[20]^[21] The Bolsheviks also imprisoned, exiled and executed a number of Chabad Hasidim.^[22]^[23]^[24] During the Second World War, many Chabad Hasidim evacuated to the Uzbek cities of Samarkand and Tashkent where they established small centers of Hasidic life, while at the same time seeking ways to emigrate from Soviet Russia due to the government's suppression of religious life.^[25] The reach of Chabad in Central Asia also included earlier efforts that took place in the 1920s.^[26] Following the war, and well after the center of the Chabad movement moved to the United States, the movement remained active in Soviet Russia, aiding the local Jews known as Refuseniks who sought to learn more about Judaism.^[27] And throughout the Soviet era, the Chabad movement maintained a secret network across the USSR.^[28] Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, state persecution of Chabad ceased. The Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, a Chabad emissary, maintains warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.^[29] Lazar also received the Order of Friendship and Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" medals from him.^[30]

Leadership

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