Jack Ross on Chabad, referring to the next post down:
I'm not sure whether or not its fair to hold them up as representing anyone but themselves. On the one hand they do more or less represent a narrow a segment of American Jewry, as anyone will tell you, on the other hand they have been shockingly enabled by the larger Jewish officialdom. And of course, while they're almost the only ones ballsy enough to say "from the river to the sea", we need not repeat here all past discussions of the fictiveness of the "two state solution".
The whole messiah question it seems to me misses the point. Though I like to respond with the line from Life Of Brian (greatest film ever made about Judaism, Christianity, and Trostkyism!): He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy! No doubt that is precisely what the late Chabad leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson's virulently anti-Zionist grandfather (Scholem Dov Ber, the fourth rebbe) would have said.
Chabad is, at root, a deeply unprincipled organization. In an almost Leninist fashion, they have come to dominate the Orthodox world, or at the very least have the sort of "domination of the big tent" which the Workers World Party had over the antiwar movement of the last decade.
Curiously, they remain opposed to a specifically religious Zionism, that is, they do not have an Israeli flag in the sanctuary nor do they observe the holidays of the 20th century sacred narrative - Yom HaShoah (Holocaust commemoration), Yom HaAtzmaut (Israeli Independence day), and Yom Yerushalayim ('67 War commemoration). Their embrace of the most extreme elements of political Zionism seems more then anything to be merely a rather cynical means of outreach to their target audience.
I'll give you my grand historical theory about Chabad: For a long time I wrestled with the question of how you explain the Christian right while Protestantism was dying everywhere else in the world. I finally concluded that it was analogous to the revival of paganism just before the fall of the Roman Empire. In other words, in the late decadent stage of the empire its sacred narrative becomes increasingly eschatological.
Thus in the history of the American Empire did rational Cold War liberalism give way to Christian dispensationalism as a justifying public ideology. Likewise with Chabad, it represents a similar late stage in Jewish nationalism as it replaced the Menshevism of the classical Labor Zionists.
In other words, whereas the religion of Reform leader Eric Yoffie is little more than Hegelianism masquerading as Judaism (and indeed quite antiquated as such), Chabad is promoting a truly mystical religion of "Jewish peoplehood", based largely on Lurianic Kabbalah, but with ultimately the same essence. That is, in the end as much a construction of political convenience as the Christian fundamentalism of the last generation.
This is dumb. Chabad is not zionistic. The map shows what is traditionally the Holy Land–and that's their attitude towards it–the Holy Land– a religious attitude. They would have used the same map in Ottoman times–it's the land, not any political entity on it. There's no Golan Heights in their map because that's not traditionally part of "the Holy Land".
Chabad is certainly not dominant in jewish orthodoxy. They are a sub-group within a sub-group, and one that really isolated themselves because of the odd messiah drama they played out in the last couple of decades.
Another and simpler explanation would be that they are a Mossad front organisation. That would explain the 'Mumbai Massacre'.
""I wrestled with the question of how you explain the Christian right while Protestantism was dying everywhere else in the world. I finally concluded that it was analogous to the revival of paganism just before the fall of the Roman Empire.""
Of course… it's a primitive paganism. Or a cult. I prefer to call them cultist. The Christian fundies are like the zionist cult fundies.
I think talking about or trying to explain the evangelical or zionist in any way except as just plain sick,insane and mentally genetically impaired is down playing their replusivness to the civilized world.
Today I sent to my friend, a Lubavitcher rabbi,and a local Chabad leader, the following question: I wonder why so many Lubavitchers are among those who support the efforts and aims of Zionists, whose forefathers cared more about land than Jewish lives. Apparently Rabbi Sholem Dov Ber Schneersohn, the Grand Rebbe, was not one of them.For he said:
"Those who assist the Zionists will pay at the Day of Judgment, because they are causing the masses to sin. Therefore, whoever is on the side of G-d and his Torah shall not join with evildoers and not become attached to them. On the contrary, they should oppose them as much as possible…
"The Zionists were more clever than the others, since they exchanged nationalism for the Torah and commandments, as Mandelstam wrote publicly, that a Jew doesn't have to be someone who keeps the commandments , but rather is a Zionist, even if he does not wear phylacteries and does not keep the Sabbath…"
And tonight I received this reply from my friend:
"There is none in history who cared and loved more for the jewish people, jewish life, jewish security and jewish pride more then rabbi schneerson. As for the "lubavitchers" you mention, I think its unfair to lump them all together no matter is written about on any website, it doesn't make it fact. I believe what my rebbe tought me not what they write about him."
Old Herbert spencer had it right. Men (and rabbis) believe to be true what they prefer to be true. Which is why we keep howling in a wind tunnel.
"I finally concluded that it was analogous to the revival of paganism just before the fall of the Roman Empire. In other words, in the late decadent stage of the empire its sacred narrative becomes increasingly eschatological."
This is silly – paganism didn't revive just before the fall of the Roman Empire; it lived on continuously from ancient times, despite the conversion to Christianity under Constantine et al. all along. In fact, 'paganism', i.e. basically Greek religion in its syncretistic forms taken over by all the peoples that Rome subjugated and subsumed – which, by the way, is far more rational than any of the Abrahamic monotheisms, none of which can explain theodicy/justice of god – 'paganism' was never eschatological. Eschatological end times nonsense is a bunch of silly hooey born of Jewish messianistic thinking under the rule of Antiochus, hence the 'dream' in Daniel, which had a specific, pretty obvious allegorical meaning in its day, was promoted among upper class Jews as nationalistic propaganda, eventually given up by most Jews entirely, and was then later picked up, reinterpreted, and amplified by early Christians until Catholicism under Irenaeus tried to stamp the silliness out. (Of course, the Church couldn't do that, because poor folks need eschatology to comfort their unfairly crappy lives, so it went underground and reemerged in the Reformation in the various Protestantisms.)
If this subject interests you, you should check out Norman Cohn's super-highly recommended book The Pursuit of the Millennium (2nd revised edition 1970 or thereabouts).
From what I know of chassidism, it differs hardly any from some of the more bizarre protestant varieties of end-times scenarios.
I too found Ross's description of Chabad to be insulting and innaccurate.
He is filled with himself.
I don't think that use of the word 'cult' explains anything, or entitles the user to dismiss anything. You should try defining it, then you would find out what it is you are actually trying to say.
There are often matters out there on the net, one isn't quite sure if it's nutty, religious, politics or perception management, or a mixture of all:
link to noahide.com
rel=”nofollow”>Dial 911 for the PLO
JAHG-USA
Religion or Politics?
The latest is, Campaign to End PLO funding
I once traced them to Anaheim CA, and Chicago. Somebody didn't inform them it's Hamas now. They are still obsessed with the PLO.
I don't think the term 'pagan' has any objective meaning. It is a christian polemical term, derived I think not from latin but from the old french, 'payenne', meaning rural. But I should be interested to know if I am wrong on that.
I don't think that use of the word 'cult' explains anything, or entitles the user to dismiss anything. You should try defining it, then you would find out what it is you are actually trying to say.
Posted by: Rowan | March 04, 2009 at 10:43 PM >>>>>>>
I have already defined it.
And know exactly what I say and cult is a perfect description.
I posted the FBI guidelines for identifying cults a few post ago.
Pay attention.
Go read it.
While the Lubavitcher cultists claim to be strictly apolitical and uninterested in Zionism, here in my city they operate an entire fleet of motor homes ("mitzvah tanks") which drive continually around NYC announcing that the Messiah has come, playing Hebrew music, and urging Jews to move to Israel. Every friday gangs of young Lubavitcher men roam the city in packs accosting strangers and interrogating them about their Jewishness.
Lubavitchers maintain a nauseating website called "True Peace" which in its racist demonology is virtually genocidal. For years, members of the terrorist JDL who used to maintain a counter-protest across from a Women in Black vigil in NYC regularly carried signs promoting the Lubavitcher "true Peace" website which showed links to the site under the slogan "The Land of Israel Belongs to the Jews."
www.truepeace.org/index.asp
Lubavitchers have for a long time maintained a grotesquely close relationship to the political elite of NYC and even though they are from Bizarro-World in terms of classical Judaism, they often put themselves forward, and are allowed to present themselves at a political level, as representatives of Judaism as a whole.
In the Israel day parade in 2005, they carried a giagntic floating missile that read "Giuliani for PM" (Prime Minister of Israel, presumably) on one side, and "giving land = taking lives" on the other.
Every Lubavitcher I have ever met or discussed this issue with are quite intensely Zionist – it could even be argued that the very existence of this movement a religious response to a theological problem posed by Zionism. In my city at least they regularly use their political power to agitate in support of settlers and settlements and against any of the various fraudulent "peace processes" that arise.
I have no intention whatever of allowing the FBI to teach me anthropology. Nor of allowing you, anonymous 'American' (one day you will be required by international law to stop claiming to own the whole continent) to give me orders.
And the Lubavitchers that I know are sweet people that acknowledge that Jews have an obligation to treat Palestinians humanely.
Generalizing is slander.
Richard Witty wrote:
"Generalizing is slander."
The apogee of self-refuting statements: It itself is nothing but pure generalization.
And vacuity is a waste of time, Richard. Now, a little practical political anthropological exercise for you all to try if you want — this seems like a good place to try it, mostly Jewish but very liberal and somewhat opposed to Jewish exclusivism, though I can develop it on my own blog with my own audience too, OK?
Here we go. The coherence of a culture (whether ideologically defined as religious, national, or whatever) is actually secured by the stability of its child-rearing practices. This normally (despite experiments with collective child-rearing) requires a stable parental home, and hence a stable parental marriage. This in turn requires a tradition of sexual knowledge and competence sufficiently effective to keep the parents from straying out of seuxal frustration. Are you following me so far? Logically, I mean, can you see my train of thought? You don't have to agree with it (ideologically), just see it as 'common sense' or 'received wisdom'.
Now, the question is this: as we know, divorce rates and consequent proportions of single-parent 'families' rise rapidly with liberalisation, and this is precisely the issue that gets contested in quite violent terms between so-called 'secular' and 'religious' communities, among Jews as among everybody else. It is fairly clear that the Jewish tradition at least claims to have preserved some tradition of sexual knowledge and competence within its religious teachings, and even touts this as somethng to be admired by non-Jews, hence the pop kabbalah, the oleagenous Shmuley, and so on. Is this in fact just part of the political psywar, or is it bona fide?
Jack Ross: "In other words, whereas the religion of Reform leader Eric Yoffie is little more than Hegelianism masquerading as Judaism (and indeed quite antiquated as such)…"
Thank you Jack, that was a fascinating post, but could you please explain how modern Reform is *Hegelianism*? What do you mean by that?
Re Rowan's comment about the "Mumbai Massacre", I have not seen any explanation about why the local Chabad-Lubavitch chapter played such a central role in the difficult to fathom story.
As most readers here would know, Chabad is "…a vast and rapidly growing organization with representation in at least 73 countries, including potentially dangerous locations in North Africa, the former Soviet Union and India.
About 4,000 couples are Chabad emissaries, making Chabad the largest Jewish outreach organization in the world." -JPost
The branded outcast, Joachim Martillo has this to say about a section of the organization,
"Still, there is an even more sinister aspect to the Lubavitcher organization.
Because Lubavitcher outreach offices are located in some of the most important political, corporate and university centers throughout the world, the Lubavitchers have put together a network that is incomparable for corporate and international espionage as well as for the secret exchange of information. Because Chabad Houses could potentially act as safe houses, where there would be no record of a person's stay, the Lubavitcher outreach network is far superior to that of Aish HaTorah for covert operations.
Most people do not take the Lubavitchers seriously, but I have visited Chabad houses and encountered senior Israeli government or military officials …
…Because the Lubavitchers provide an unconditional welcome to all Jews in the hope of bringing them closer to the Lubavitcher way of life, not only have the Lubavitchers been open to potential subversion by Israeli intelligence organizations, but in general Mossad and Shin Bet have found it quite easy to penetrate the haredi community as the two organizations managed to do both in Israel and also in the USA during the Yossele Affair …"
the origin of Lubavitch's position of privilege in Czarist Russia was as follows: during the advance of the Napoleonic armies towards Moscow, they became a Czarist fifth column behind the advancing Napoleonic lines, because the first Lubavitcher rebbe decided that liberalisation a la Napoleon was a greater threat to Judaism than the Czarist status quo. And of course, this set the pattern they have followed ever since.
Summary: Chabad, Jewish Political Elites
Russian Jews were being patriotic and Joachim still whines.
Absolutely classic memoirs of the Ukrainian Eduard Hodos, regarding Vladimir Putin, Lev Leviev, Berezovsky, Guzinsky, and chief Russian Chabadnik Berl Lazar, all carefully edited by me for relevance:
Great article Joachim.
The map shows what is traditionally the Holy Land
Tripe. The map shows Israel extending down to Eilat, on the Red Sea. Eilat was never part of the traditional "Holy Land": the southern limits were at BeerSheva.
I would advise all of you to check out Chabad.org to see what they have to say themself about all these issues.
Really, Jason? Why?
Hey Rowan, you might learn something. Especially by reading between the lines.
well, I have read the Tanya, if that counts at all. I don't find it very interesting compared with serious textbooks of kabbalah, some of which are online, such as Luzzato's "138 Openings", which I was put onto, oddly enough, by someone who claims to be a Sabbatian.
Incidentally, couldn't you think of a more imaginative nickname for yourself than 'Jew'? It's like calling yourself 'Kraut', or 'Yank', frankly.
whine about jewish victimhood while sucking off the goyhim.