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(LifeSiteNews) — This is the sixth and final part of an investigation into Chabad-Lubavitch, the international Hasidic Jewish denomination based in New York.
Although it had modest beginnings, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (known by many as “The Rebbe” or “The Lubavitcher Rebbe”) was responsible for forming Chabad into the powerhouse that it is today.
In the first part, we saw that Chabad has long promoted troubling ideas about an imminent messianic age, the Jerusalem Temple and a Noahide New World Order. Various aspects of these ideas are inimical to Christianity, as well as peace in the Middle East.
In the second, we saw that it also promotes an extreme doctrine of racial supremacy under the guise of spirituality, in which non-Jews exist to serve the Jews, and are inferior to them. Given Chabad’s influence, these ideas may shed light on attitudes to the death in Gaza.
In the third part, we saw that Israel’s Netanyahu government, including ministers Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and former minister Benny Gantz, have links with Chabad, who represent a significant voting bloc in the country.
In the fourth part, we saw how Argentine President Javier Milei’s links with Chabad lead us to George Soros, Klaus Schwab and the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, which culminates with a Shabbat dinner in part organized by Chabad.
In the fifth part, we saw that despite less than 0.3% of the U.S. population being associated with Chabad, the extent of their influence in American political life is truly astonishing, and extends even to the very top.
In this final part, we will survey a range of other links that Chabad enjoy in American public life, as well as international politics – and draw our investigation to a close.
Some of these links may be mere links of convenience, without really showing a network of power. Nonetheless, they highlight how influential and widespread Chabad is, and that those linked with the group do not appear to be troubled by association with a group which spreads an extreme doctrine of racial supremacy.
Chabad’s influence in American media and elsewhere
When Elon Musk was criticized for allegedly antisemitic comments in 2023, he went to visit Israel. He also later visited Auschwitz with Ben Shapiro and the Chabad-affiliated Rabbi Menachem Margolin.[1]
Entrepreneur Elon Musk joins Chabad Rabbi Menachem Margolin, who chairs the European Jewish Association (EJA); podcaster and journalist Ben Shapiro; and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The visit comes amid rising antisemitism in the wake of the… pic.twitter.com/NXK9C2jOYX— Chabad Lubavitch HQ (@Lubavitch) January 22, 2024
Incidentally, “Argentina’s First Lubavitcher President” Javier Milei – whose links with Chabad we have already discussed – recently met with Elon Musk in April 2024.
VIVA LA LIBERTAD CARAJO…!!!
CC: @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/bkEIvtCwpy
— Javier Milei (@JMilei) April 12, 2024
Facebook/Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg seems to have been involved with the group, and he is pictured at a Chabad Purim party in 2015, dancing with Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi (Harvard’s Chabad rabbi).[2]
Dennis Prager appeared on a Chabad-sympathetic podcast, where he spoke about his appreciation for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.[3]
Prager has also written books with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, who himself wrote a biography of Schneerson.[4]
In a previous part, we discussed Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has long been a prominent figure in American life, being associated with Michael Jackson and other celebrities. Despite this, many became aware of him for the first time due to his recent feud with Candace Owens. Boteach himself claimed shared responsibility for having her fired from the Daily Wire.[5]
Tired of organizations that take your money to fight antisemitism but won’t take the gloves off? Support the World Values Network now. Candace Owens is just the latest antisemite we got fired for spewing Jew-hatred. We need your support now! DM us or donate directly to -… pic.twitter.com/9LUnRmN8U8
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) April 21, 2024
Boteach is a former Chabad-Lubavitch “shliach” (an emissary to other Jews), and the movement apparently played a significant role in his formation.
Boteach and Chabad have since parted ways, and while he no longer holds an official position with the movement, he has called Schneerson his “mentor”[6] and displays a picture of him in photos.[7]
#TossItBackTuesday with my mentor Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, “The #Rebbe” I’m second from the right. the proudest Jew I have ever met pic.twitter.com/X9Gh4HQI54
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) August 29, 2017
Russian-American Jewish journalist Yasha Levine alleges that he played a formative role in the life and early career of U.S. Senator Cory Booker, as discussed in the previous piece.[8]
Boteach has also become very associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and Max Blumenthal has alleged that he is the “bagman” for the Adelsons – namely, the late Sheldon Adelson and his widow Miriam Adelson.
As discussed in the previous piece, the Adelsons have been megadonors for the Republican Party for several years, having given substantial funds to the Romney and Trump campaigns. The Adelsons also donated $500,000 to a superPAC supporting Boteach’s congressional candidacy in 2012.[9]
Beautiful picture of mega-philanthropist Dr. Miriam Adelson with #ElieWiesel and me in New York. We all miss Elie pic.twitter.com/Sa9iGJG8ja
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) July 6, 2016
We discussed the Adelsons at greater length in Part V – including their association with Chabad, to the point of one of the Las Vegas Chabad centers being named after them:
The late Sheldon Adelson is also quoted by Chabad as saying:
Anyone who is concerned about Jewishness and assimilation, and carrying on Jewish tradition should be supporting Chabad organizations, because they are the ones that keep it alive.[10]
Today #Israel welcomed home a great #Jewish patriot. PM @netanyahu @IsraeliPM met the casket of the late Sheldon Adelson, as it arrived in #Israel, draped in #US & #Israel flags, ahead of his funeral on Friday. He will be buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in #Jerusalem 🙏🏻🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/8eKAUBMz1d
— Shahar Azani (@ShaharAzani) January 14, 2021
Ghislaine Maxwell & Jeffrey Epstein
From prison, Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein’s now convicted accomplice – is under the care of a Chabad-Lubavitch social outreach program, the Reaching Out Group, which works exclusively for Jewish prisoners. It was reported by the British newspaper The Sun that, since identifying as Jewish in prison, she has been receiving “better food and more time off work.”[11]
Although Maxwell is not Jewish according to Jewish law, her “newspaper magnate” father Robert Maxwell was. He too had links with Chabad-Lubavitch: according to Chabad’s own website, on one occasion, he worked with Chabad stakeholders to rescue children from Chernobyl after the terrible nuclear disaster.[12]
In his book about the University of Oxford, Rabbi Boteach claims that Maxwell financed the purchase of a new Chabad House in Oxford:
[T]he financing of the new centre rested to a great extent on the late Robert Maxwell, the newspaper and publishing tycoon, providing us with complete sponsorship for the new centre…[13]
Maxwell himself died under strange circumstances. He took a trip on his private yacht in 1991. He went missing overnight, and his naked body was found floating in the Atlantic twelve hours later, about 15 miles from his boat.[14] A now-defunct Chabad website alleges:
One of Robert Maxwell’s last known conversations aboard his yacht before his tragic death was a conference call with Rabbi Yosef Aharonov in Moscow and Rabbi Feivish Vogel in London.
They were discussing an issue with which Maxwell had recently gotten involved – the restoration to Lubavitch of the private library of Rabbi Sholom Ber Schneersohn, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, which is currently being retained by the Soviet Government.[15]
Aharonov and Vogel are both Chabad rabbis.[16]
The journalist Seymour Hersh famously accused Maxwell of being a Mossad agent. Whether he was or not, it is certain that Maxwell was buried in the prestigious Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, with Israeli dignitaries such as President Chaim Herzog and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in attendance. In his eulogy, Herzog described him as “a man cast in a heroic mold,”[17] and Shamir said, enigmatically:
He has done more for Israel than can today be said.[18]
The New York Times reported that his funeral was attended by “Hasidic rabbis from the Lubavitcher movement as well as a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Coggan.”[19] Aharonov and Vogel were among these Chabad-Lubavitcher rabbis.[20]
Maxwell’s status on the border of media and political life brings us to Chabad’s network with national leaders across the world.
The Ukraine vs. Russia war
Ukraine has a long history with Chabad-Lubavitch, and its borders today include the birthplace of Schneerson himself.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has met with Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis on multiple occasions. In May 2019, very soon after winning the Ukrainian election in April, he held an “historic” meeting with six Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi/shluchim.[21]
At this meeting, Rabbi Kaminezki told Zelensky:
The emissaries who were sent here by the Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] didn’t come here for a certain amount of time; we’re here until Moshiach comes.[22]
Volodymyr Zelensky: The Historic First Jewish President of Ukraine
The Comedian-turned-politician when he meet with Ukraine’s Chabad rabbis https://t.co/ikLu6ErxON pic.twitter.com/6P6TzsXaRY
— Chabad.org (@Chabad) February 28, 2022
These meetings continued. In 2020, he met with Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Meir Stambler (Chabad shliach and Chairman of the Council of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine) to discuss “safety and compliance with pandemic and regulations during the upcoming High Holidays.”[23]
President Zelensky @ZelenskyyUa @APUkraine met with #Ukraine‘s #Rabbis @FJCU on the occasion of upcoming #RoshHashanahhttps://t.co/GSTly3eNke pic.twitter.com/pa7ZYXcPQS
— Levi Matusof (@EURabbi) August 25, 2020
In September 2023, he met with a collection of rabbis, including Chabad emissaries, at a meeting organized by Rabbi Meir Stambler.[24]
According to another report, Zelensky met with 32 Chabad emissaries, who (in Stambler’s words) “represent over 200 families of Chabad emissaries residing in Ukraine.” The discussion turned around what they had been doing during the war for “both the Jewish and broader populations.”[25]
In December 2023, Zelensky held a Hanukah event at the presidential palace in Kiev, attended by a number of Chabad rabbis.
Volodymyr Zelensky Kindles Menorah in Ukraine’s Presidential Palace
The Jewish president was joined by Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis serving Ukrainehttps://t.co/TA69QkuDe1 pic.twitter.com/IpRPu2UZch
— Chabad.org (@Chabad) December 8, 2023
In April 2024, on the eve of Passover, Zelensky met again with a collection of rabbis, including Chabad shluchim.
The President of #Ukraine Volodomyr Zelensky met with a group of Chabad Shluchim in Ukraine ahead of the Pesach holiday.
“Pesach is the holiday of freedom. We believe that we will also experience a miracle like the children of Israel did in Egypt,” Zelensky said. “The Russians… pic.twitter.com/HkqoVo9uLs
— Henshi (@HenshiG) April 19, 2024
On the eve of the #Passover in a bomb shelter, Ukrainian rabbis gifted President Zelensky with an Aggadah in Ukrainian and matzah produced in #Dnipro, an important centre of Judaism in Ukraine.
Credit Olga Klymenko
🇺🇦🔯💙💛🌻 pic.twitter.com/9qGc50rcBS— MykhailoNORTH🇨🇦🇺🇦🌻 (@mykpy) April 21, 2024
But Chabad’s links with Zelensky become intriguing when we realize that the organization also enjoys a very special relationship with the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin: Chabadnik president?
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is also a known supporter of Chabad – although it might be more accurate to say this is a relationship of mutual convenience.
The Times of Israel writes:
Few would dispute that Putin has been friendly to Jewish institutional life in Russia — especially to organizations and leaders that belong to the Chabad Hasidic movement.
Gorin, a Chabad rabbi and chairman of Moscow’s $50 million Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, credits Putin personally for providing state funding for the institution, which opened in 2012. Putin also donated a month’s wages to the museum.[26]
In this same article, Zvi Gitelman – professor of Judaic studies at the University of Michigan – suggested that that Putin was actively involved in promoting Chabad interests:
Chabad, with the help of Putin, is now the dominant religious expression of Judaism in a mostly nonreligious population.[27]
This article also alleges that “[o]ther Jewish groups, however, have had less cozy relations with the Putin government” – and that this is in turn because of the influence of Chabad-affiliated rabbis.[28]
Gitelman was also reported as saying that “the relationship between Putin and the Chabad organization in Russia is one of mutual convenience.”[29] The Times of Israel, citing Gitelman, explains further:
Shortly after taking office, the Putin government clashed with several prominent Jewish business moguls, including Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, both of whom went into self-imposed exile.
‘When he went after these oligarchs, Putin sensed that this could be interpreted as anti-Semitism,’ Gitelman said. ‘He immediately, publicly, demonstratively and dramatically embraced Chabad.'[30]
As a result, “Putin has not been shy about using his good relations with Chabad to his advantage.”
The Jewish Russian-American journalist Yasha Levine had this to say:
By the time I arrived [in Russia in mid-2000s], Chabad had become the biggest and most powerful Jewish organization in Russia.
No other religious Jewish outfit even came close to competing with it in terms of funding, political connections and sheer organizational energy. Its emissaries – usually family groups consisting of a young rabbi, his wife and their kids – where spread throughout something like 40 cities.
Yep, Chabad was the undisputed King of Russian Jews, but not because it had succeeded on its merits or had been embraced by the locals. Nope, Chabad owed its influence and power to a cynical and sleazy deal it worked out with Vladimir Putin—a deal that went back to Putin’s war with the original, and mostly Jewish, Yeltsin-era oligarchs: Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky and everyone’s favorite oligarch-turned-political prisoner Mikhail Khordorkovsky.[31]
Levine goes on to explain, in terms similar to Gitelman above, how Putin “began warring with the Yeltsin era oligarchs who had initially put him in office.” Levine states that although “[t]he fight was largely about political and economic power,” it was presented in the press as “an authoritarian struggle with heavy overtones of anti-semitism.”[32]
In short, it was a PR nightmare for Putin. He needed someone from the Jewish world in his corner, reassuring folks that antisemitism had nothing to do with his crackdown on Jewish oligarchs.
And that’s where Chabad came in. Not long after Putin took power, he worked out a deal with Chabad. The organization would have to publicly and loudly support Putin’s policies, and defend him against charges of antisemitism. In return, it would receive lavish funding from two Putin-friendly oligarchs, and get the full support of the Russian government to operate in the Russian Federation.
In short, Chabad would become Putin’s third party spokesman. Or as some called them, Putin’s Court Jews.[33]
Levine then gives examples of Putin appearing at Chabad events at politically expedient times.
In a previous piece, we discussed Chabad’s links with the World Economic Forum, particularly through a Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz. Berkowitz was formerly the executive director of Chabad’s operations in Russia. Levine reports:
[Berkowitz] used his speech to praise Putin as a friend of the Jewish people and to dispel foolish talk about his anti-Semitism.[34]
He continues:
With Putin providing the political backing and Jewish Putin-friendly oligarchs providing the cash, Chabad became an unstoppable force in Russia’s ramshackle Jewish community.
But success had a price. In 2005, Haaretz published a very detailed investigation into Chabad’s sudden rise in Russia. This revealed that the third-party advocacy deal Chabad officials had struck up with Putin wasn’t restricted to protecting him from charges of anti-Semitism.[35]
In fact, Levine says, this deal had also involved Chabad promising to use Washington, D.C. connections to “act as covert lobbyists on behalf of Russia.”
Rabbi Berel Lazar – Putin’s rabbi
In a previous part, we saw that Chabad Rabbi Berel Lazar has also attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, and that this is where he met the Honorable Nathaniel Rothschild. Lazar, Moscow’s chief rabbi, is also called “Putin’s Rabbi,” because of his close collaboration with Putin and because he often appears at the side of the President at public events. As the Times of Israel has it:
Lazar has maintained close ties with the Russian government and its president Putin. He officiates regularly at Kremlin-sponsored events, gave Putin a tour of the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2012, and appeared alongside the Russian president when he hosted former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow in 2018.
In a 2007 video, Rabbi Lazar speaks of his good relations with Putin and he recounts how Putin told him why he is so supportive of Jews.[36]
Concerning the current war in Israel and Palestine, there seem to exist disagreements between these two men and Lazar has offered to meditate with Ukraine.[37]
While Putin does seem to have accepted this offer, January 2023 saw an event suggesting Putin’s continuing relationship with Chabad. The Times of Israel reported that Putin fired Aleksey Pavlov, the assistant secretary of the Russian Security Council – and implied that this was because Pavlov criticized Chabad-Lubavitch for its extreme racialist doctrine:
No official reason was given for the Friday dismissal of the assistant secretary of the Russian Security Council Aleksey Pavlov. A spokesperson for the Security Council told Russia’s TASS news agency that Pavlov was moving to another position but also gave no details.
However, the reports noted the article he wrote in October in which he called for the “desatanization” of Ukraine, claiming that the country is home to hundreds of neo-pagan cults.
Pavlov included in his list of cults the Chabad-Lubavitch sect, which began in the 18th century in Russia and is today a major religious force throughout the former Soviet Union and in Russia and Ukraine in particular.
‘The main principle of the Lubavitch Hasidim is the superiority of the supporters of the sect over all nations and peoples,’ Pavlov wrote.[38]
The implication here is that Pavlov lost his job for pointing out the extreme doctrine of racial supremacy taught by Schneerson and his predecessors, promoted today by Chabad, and noticed as such by other Jewish writers.
Conclusion
We could continue at length drawing out the links between Chabad-Lubavitch and national politicians across the world.
But for now, let’s draw both this survey to a close, and consider everything which we have seen in this series.
We have seen Chabad’s history and interest in a supposedly imminent messianic age. Bringing about this utopia through hastening the coming of the Moshiach is the central concern for Chabad, as admitted by the Israeli Rabbis in 2015, and permeates their activities.
Hastening this coming utopia entails spreading “the Noahide Laws,” a religious system inimical to Christianity. It would also entail the building of the Jerusalem Temple, the return of all the Jewish people to Israel and the imposition of Jewish law there. Such outcomes would be very detrimental to world peace if they occurred.
We also saw that Chabad promotes an extreme doctrine of racial supremacy wrapped up in mystical language. Even other Jews have described Chabad’s ideas as “a kind of metaphysical racism.”[39]
Despite (or perhaps because of) these controversial ideas, Chabad is an influential group in Israel, with “Chabadniks” making up a significant voting bloc supporting extreme parties. These links extend to various government ministers, including Netanyahu himself, as well as Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and others.
We then saw that Chabad “makes a point” of creating relationships with world leaders such as President Javier Milei of Argentina. We saw this same program amongst a number of American politicians, and the surprising influence the group has exercised with US presidents and a bewildering array of politicians and influential figures worldwide.
We also saw that Chabad has links with Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum and George Soros. In this latter case, it seems reasonable to ask the question, “Who is influencing whom”?
There are many kind and pleasant people involved with Chabad-Lubavitch, who no doubt are sincerely trying to do what they think is God’s will. There are even aspects of Chabad’s program that could be instructive or even somewhat admirable for Christians.
But no matter how sincere and well-intentioned someone might be, or how admirable on the natural level, it is a fact that ideas have consequences, regardless of their intentions. We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that this group is using the enormous network of influence we have surveyed to promote ideas and goals which are dangerous in themselves, and inimical to Christianity and to the Kingship of Christ over society.
Nor can we turn a blind eye to the fact that the “metaphysical racism” of Chabad philosophy is false and abhorrent in itself, as well as easily conducive to the killing of non-Jews.
Nor indeed can we ignore the fact that their Moshiach and messianic ideology are very similar to what Catholic authorities expect of the Antichrist, as well as what will hasten his coming and the early stages of his religious persecution of Christianity.
For these reasons we should pray for the conversion of those associated with Chabad. Let us pray that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, through the intercession of his mother, our Queen, and the most faithful daughter of the Covenant, bless all of them, and indeed all the Jewish people.
Let us pray that he enlighten their hearts with his grace, and bring them to acknowledge him as the true Messiah, the true Moshiach who has already come into the world and redeemed us – and so that they will not be deceived by whoever it is yet to come, who will deceive many into thinking that he is the Moshiach. He will be no so such thing at all.
Let’s pray, rather, that they turn their famous “Yechi” song from Schneerson, to Our Lord Jesus Christ: “Long live our master, our teacher, our rabbi, King and Moshiach forever.”
Help Christians who escaped Gaza: LifeFunder
References