… I had heard that Venice was a place of romance; a magical city built
on canals. But once there, we also discovered Venice’s "Jewish
problem." Two factions – one foreign, small and missionizing, the other
indigenous, threatened and struggling – are engaged in a love-hate
relationship.…I davened several mornings with Chabad, praying opposite a picture of the rebbe and a wall adorned with the messianic catchphrase: Yehi adoneinu moreinu v’rabbeinu melech ha’moshiah l’olam vaed! (Long live our master, teacher, and rabbi, the King Messiah, for ever and ever.) …
Here is the center of the established
community, whose religious life is led by Chief Rabbi Elia Richetti, as
well as the power base of Chabad-Lubavitch’s Rami Banin.Both are sympathetic characters; both Italian-born, both Orthodox.…
The official community or kehilla "shares" the courtyard
and its environs with Lubavitch. Its Jewish museum daily draws scores
of visitors – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – and is a gateway to the
ghetto’s five historic synagogues. There are also an old age home, art
galleries, tourist shops and a kosher bakery/grocery. There’s an eruv
and even a mikve.But it is Chabad’s in-your-face presence that appropriates the
limelight: A storefront yeshiva for a dozen American and Israeli
rabbinical students, an outreach center, and the strategically located
Lubavitch-run Gam-Gam restaurant.…The official community distances itself from Chabad, though
Richetti sometimes turns to the yeshiva boys for a minyan and certifies
Gam-Gam’s kashrut. As both pulpit rabbi and neighborhood coordinator,
he’s proud that some 20 families order meat and other kosher provisions
from Milan.…Meanwhile, slowly, methodically, Chabad appears committed to
usurping Judaism in Venice. But this is not Bangkok; there’s an
indigenous community that won’t roll over and die.Chabad appears to have deep pockets. It set up shop 12 years
ago and now plans to open a kindergarten (to compete with the kehilla’s
kindergarten attended by 12 youngsters). Richetti notes that no Jewish
child has been born in Venice in three years, and is suspicious of
Chabad’s intentions.…
Read it all here.
12 Comments
November 15, 2004 at 10:31 am
The Jerusalem Post article indicates that Venice is not Bangkok , implying that in Bangkok there were no Jews & then came Chabad & created in a Deus ex Machina fashion a Jewish community -ex nihilo.
Nothing is further from the truth. There were 2 synagogues before the arrival of Chabad. The Chabad Rabbi, was “hired” by the unsuspecting community on condition to maintain the Sephardi rite .
November 15, 2004 at 2:31 pm
The issue of Chabad activities in small communities gives me mixed feelings.
On the one hand most of these shluchim eventualy desire to dominate the native community and usrpe its communal institutions or merge them into Chabad . (The Skverer rebbe ZTL once told me that he would not hire any Lubavitcher teachers in his mosdoth, because there was a good chance that in the near future his school would apear in a list of supposed Chabad institutions.)
The story of Venice has happened in many small towns and shuls ,including communities in the US.
On the other hand there is presently no other source of rabbis willing to serve small communities outside of Brooklyn and Baltimore.
There is lots of talk about the need for this sort of service , but no one does it.
The closest is certain rabbis sponsored by organs of the Zionist movement and the Isreali government. A number of rabbis in the former east Europe are there on this basis like Chief rabbi Menachem hacohnen of Bucharest. In many cases there stay is financed by the American Joint.
But no American Yeshiva like Ner Israel, Chaim Berlin Mirer,Lakewood makes such service mandatory or encourages such service.This forces most of these smaller communities to rely ofn the hundreds of Lubavitcher rabbis ready to travel abroad or in small communities annually.
In my opinion , before we can criticize these Lubavitcher rabbis , we ned to be ready to replace them. Is YU ready to provide 10 rabbis per year to small communities in Europe ? Are 5 Ner Israel musmachim ready to go to South Africa every year ?Are 20 Lakweood men ready to go to places like Small ville USA, Alaska, Singapore etc ? Well if not then Lubavitch should receive somme immunity in my opinion.
November 15, 2004 at 2:52 pm
I second schneur’s comments. It’s one thing to criticize. It’s another thing to criticize them when you have no other viable solution.
November 15, 2004 at 4:34 pm
I moved to Texas, where there is a Sephardi synagogue. but the Sephardi rabbi is there no more. In his place is an Askenazi rabbi, perhaps even Chabad. I will have to gently inquire what happened, once I settle in. Maybe with Chabad paying some expenses, these are now cheap rabbis for a community to acquire. I wish there was something like a Sephardi chabad with a Rebbe and all that.
Sephardi
November 15, 2004 at 9:51 pm
Sadly, the same thing was happening at the only Iraqi synagogue in America a while back. However, I know that one lady fought the attempt to make the Iraqis into Ashkenazim, I’ll have to ask her if her attempts were succesfful.
November 15, 2004 at 11:18 pm
Josiah:
What city is the Iraqi synagogue? I can find out the rest.
For me, the Texas synagogue has plans to construct a ‘Taj Mahal’ type synagogue. Can’t figure, if one has no funds to afford a real Sephardi rabbi why have plans for a Taj Mahal?? What they have now is totally sufficient. Maybe the Sephardi rabbi that was there only wanted to look important (not do anything)
I knew a really good Sephardi rabbi in SF 15 to 20 years ago but a Maryland syn bought him out.
November 16, 2004 at 1:18 am
I actually know the Bangkok community. The last time I was there was about two years ago, but as far as I know Rabbi Kantor still serves as the rabbi of both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi synagogues. Before he arrived the communities had difficulty getting minyanim and kosher food was scarce and precious. Now there is a kosher restaurant and bakery, there are regular minyanim, holiday services in outlying resorts, free Shabbat meals, a cheder, and a Jewish library.
There is no reason to disparage the community as it was before, but it was dying. Now it’s active and vital. They made absolutely the right choice in picking a Chabad rabbi, and as a result Thailand now has a significant (although mostly transient) Jewish community.
jds
November 16, 2004 at 8:57 am
Chabad can supply many services no other group or individual rabbi can or is willing to do.
The Lubavitcher rabbi is willing to serve at a reasonable salary. His wife is a full time rebbetzin involved in community life. Additional support services can be supplied via Chabad yeshiva students from places like Bruno, France, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Melbourne etc.There students run summer camps , Pesach sedorim, events for Russian Jews etc. Actual goods like siddurim etc are also supplied in a liberal manner via the central Chabad agencies.
Of course there are problems with Chabad rabbis who try to replace local community standards with Chabad practice.And financial issues sometimes turn ugly too.
Lets face it nations with huge Jewish populations like Argentian, (300.000) Brazil, (175,000) Australia,(85,000) Southafrica, (80,000) England (240,000) the CIS (2 million) have Jewish clergy completely dominated by Chabad rabbis.They also make it a point to train local people to help them :witness the recent ordaination of a Hungarian native (Rabbi Kovacs) as the first Orthodox rabbi there in over 40 years to receive semicha in Budapest)
And they do a good job running schools serving as army chaplains, (in places Argentina and Australia) starting BT schools, pastoral work etc.
Ironically if you need to be certain that you will not interface with Chabad you need to daven at Charedi shuls 9read Hungarian or Chasidic)in Australia, Brazil Hungary Argentina, Denmark and other places. etc. Otherwise most shuls are Chabad dominated (not so much in the UK)
A proposal why can YU or Ner Israel not start rabbinical schools in the UK to serve English speaking nations with feeder school in Australia and South africa.The same should be true in Russia,Chabad has a wonderful Yeshiva -rabbinical school near S. saulo in Brazil that produces Portuguese speaking rabbis.
In my humble opinion this is one of the greatest challenges facing Modern orthodoxy.
Until we do these lets tone down our criticism of Chabad in these countries.
November 18, 2004 at 7:20 pm
R’ Schneur
Yes and no .
It is true that their Rabbis , present initially as more competitive to get the jobs . Once on the job , the subversion starts . From running paralel & competing congregations to those employing them ; applying Machiavelian schemes of divide & rule , while pronouncing themselves for unity.
That is only unity in homogenised congregations under their tutelage. No loshon hore or dishonesty is spared at achieving their aims .
“most of these shluchim eventualy desire to dominate the native community” -it’s not only the shluchim, , they are sent in the first place with an attitude of “go get them” . Their enemies are the others , all the others. Where Judaism wears a smile, is a smile of deceipt.
Like swindling unsuspecting gentile donnors in Telethons & then teaching that the charity of the gentiles is a lie ?
They are all indoctrinated to feel superior to “anybody else” . I heard one of them in his spiritual diapers saying that “nobody” out of their movement understands really “fear of heaven” . With their own Shulchan Arukh & what not . Then they like to present themselves to the uneducated as an “intellectual” movement. What is “intellectual” about the Tanya ?
Likutei this & Likutei that ; really a collection of quotations from the Talmud of legends and lore that they present at face value & taken for granted – no Tarah talking in human language here. Everything is taken literally .
Then Tanya is pushed as an equal weight to the Talmud ?
And oh ! kabboleh to all , before chumash .
Then the Seders to the non observants in Katmandu , Goa & Bangkok. Why make the effort to kosher your home in Israel when you can celebrate a Passover lite with a free Seder provided by Chabad. Did anybody say free ? To who ? Was it free from the donnor ?
The graduating in Budapest ?! They graduate in curiously short time I suspect this kind of “first since the holocaust” to be a just for show gimmick . Planting flags , just like printing the Tanya in 2,000 hamlets worldwide . In Louis, Francisco , Barbara , Mesa , Antonio , Diego , Paolo , Vincent , Paul etc….
I don’t envy all those congregations you mention as being dominated. They are led in wrong path .
They may need to be excorcised later .
November 23, 2004 at 4:22 pm
Since I am not on the payroll of 770 or a shliach, I will not argue with Reb Ladron. Elu veElu.
My main point is that few of our othr Orthodox yeshivas, organizations, and Chasidic groups do anything to assist Jewish communities in smaller communities both in the U.S. and over seas.
Why can’t the Agudath israel under the leadership of Rabbi perlow start sending young rabbis to serve for 2 year assignments in small comunities in South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and other latin american countries for starters?
Since most of our yeshivas are supported by private donations, these yungeleit do owe something for the years they sat and learnt in Lakewood etc.
So instead of all of us complaining let rabbi perlow organize yeshivas like lakewood , Torah V”Dass, Chaim berlin, Ner Israel and Yeshiva University and others to assign students annualy to these small community postings.
Its no trick to move to Waterbury, CT and establish another large isolated yeshiva community while suburban communities nearby are being abandoned to reform and Conservative rabbis. Only Lubavitch is doing something in this area.
And these people can also be produced in cram courses. there are lots of guys in our yeshivas who have little interest in serious learning. Instead of becoming diamond dealers, or garmentos , let them be pulpit rabbis.
November 24, 2004 at 12:32 pm
R’ Schneur ,
Actually , you are right it is true . The institutions that u enumerated do little if anything in this regards.
Somebody mentioned earlier the Israeli Govt supports or runs (I am not sure) Torah Mitziyon.
I know many Yeshivat Har Etzion and Merkaz Harav alumni go / travel on Shlichuyos for mainly educational purpose in schools.
I know YU had projects in FSU but very few if any stay beyond the stated mission of their trips.
The sfardis have the Midrash Sfard of Rabbi S Kassin in Jerusalem that trains & sends Rabbis to small community overseas .
But the sum of all of that is too little when compared to the scope of work needed .
November 24, 2004 at 7:19 pm
Reb ladron,
We must demand that the large yeshivoth establish such programs. I bet once these programs are in place, much of our anger against Lubavitch will subside.
Another proposal a forum beween chabad leaders and otherOrthodox leaders to discuss non theological isues such as cooperation, fund raising, kavod h0rabbanuth etc. Lets start a dialogue with chabad and lets forget about Messianism for a while.