Jews split by a messianic message

The right-wing views of a new breed of rabbis have angered many
worshippers in Europe, finds Jason Burke in Venice

The Observer

Rabbi Ramy Banin, a big man with a long grey beard, is sitting in his
office switching easily between English, Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish
as he chats with visitors who walk through its open door. Outside, the
late-summer sun slants across the small square of Venice's Jewish
Ghetto, warming the red and yellow walls of the tall buildings and the
500-year-old synagogue, past the memorial to the Jews deported in the
Second World War and past shops selling menorah, stars of David and
other Hebraica.

A Venezuelan stops by the rabbi's office to introduce his Polish wife -
'a good Jewish girl, of course,' he says. An American woman wanders in
and leaves with a handful of pamphlets. Outside, a group of
schoolchildren sing a few lines of a religious song.

Banin, 41, is the local 'emissary' of the Chabad or Lubavitch
movement, an ultra-orthodox, messianic and controversial strand of
Judaism committed to changing the face of Europe's Jewish community.
In Britain the long-established Lubavitch community is relatively low-
profile. But in central and eastern Europe, and wherever else Jewish
life was ravaged by the Nazis, Chabad has launched an evangelical
outreach campaign which, helped by huge funds, hundreds of energetic
men like Banin and modern marketing skills, is finding big success.

Though barely recognised, the scale of Chabad's operation is vast.
When it holds an annual conference at its New York headquarters for
its 'emissaries' from around the world, more than 3,000 are expected,
each the leader of an established or nascent congregation in America
or overseas. Each year dozens of new missions are established.

But as supporters speak of Chabad's activities rejuvenating ageing
Jewish communities, detractors are angered by the brash newcomers and
their hardline conservatism, theology about the coming of a new
messiah and links to the hard right in Israel. In Prague this year,
'Chabadniks' and locals came to blows in one of the main synagogues.
There have been tensions in Lithuania, Germany, Russia, Sweden and
Italy. When, on a Friday night this summer, Banin entertained up to
300 or so Jews to a free kosher dinner at the Chabad-run restaurant
near his office, the guests almost outnumbered the local Jewish
community, one of the oldest in Europe. 'They don't like it too much,'
said Liav Kohen, the Israeli chef of the restaurant. 'They feel a bit
swamped.'

One controversial project has been in Berlin, where Chabad arrived
nine years ago and is building a u3m educational centre. Some 20,000-
strong a decade ago, the practising Jewish community in Germany has
been revitalised by an influx of at least 80,000 largely non-
practising Russian Jews. Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, the Chabad emissary in
Berlin, said: 'Many, many people, especially the new immigrants, had
no knowledge of their Jewish identity at all and we have been very
active in teaching them. Now hundreds, especially children, are coming
to our centres and are open and proud about being Jewish,' he said.
'This is our revenge on Hitler. This is the greatest message that the
Nazis failed.'

Teichtal denies any friction. Chabad in Germany has many supporters.
Nathan Kalmanowicz, a senior member of the German Jewish community's
governing body, said Chabad's major donors in the US and Europe
provided rabbis for dozens of Germany's 86 small Jewish communities.
'We should do it, but we don't have the resources. The German Jewish
community is trying to deal with a massive influx and needs all the
help it can get. Chabad complements the existing structures, they
don't go against them. They are not my cup of tea, but they don't tell
me how to worship and I like them very much,' Kalmanowicz said.

Others take a different line. '[Chabad] is a danger because it is like
a sect,' said Dr Julius Schoeps of Berlin's Moses Mendelssohn Centre
for Jewish Studies. 'They have the money, they have a message and a
very effective educational system. It is a sort of war. They conquer
the countries where Jews are living ... and that has profound, long-
term consequences for Jewish communities throughout Europe.'

Schoeps, like many other Jews, is concerned about the messianic
message. Chabad started in the Belarussian town of Lubavitch 250 years
ago, led by rabbis who told their followers that they should prepare
for a messiah who would deliver the Jews and usher in a new age of
global peace. After decades on the margins, Chabad, under the
leadership of a brilliant scholar called Menachem Mendel Schneerson,
began to grow rapidly. Images of Schneerson appear in the movement's
literature. A picture hangs in Banim's office and his restaurant.

Most controversially of all, Schneerson, who fled Nazi persecution to
the US, where he died in 1994, is considered by many to be the
messiah. Some believe he lives on, though not in a physical form.
'Messianism is a huge component of their philosophy - as is outreach,
all mixed with an energetic, lively, happy idea of what it means to be
Jewish that touches a whole range of ethnic and religious identity
issues' said Dr Wilson Pickett, of the Institute for Jewish Policy
Research London. 'Put it together and you have something that is far
from bland, spiritual fare and can be very attractive.'

But though it is camouflaged by mysticism, and emphasises 'a
constructed chicken soup identity', Chabad has a political side too.
It staunchly supports Israel's Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West
Bank, and members were at the forefront of protests during the forced
withdrawal of settlers last month. Chabad leaflets in the Venice
office talk of 'the integrity of the land of Israel ... given by the
Almighty to His people in perpetuity.'

But emissaries mainly concentrate on raising consciousness, as among
Jewish tourists in Venice, and on raising a new generation. In Venice,
Banim proudly says, Chabad has just opened a kindergarten. There are
just a handful of children but the rabbi hopes numbers will rise.
Other activities include tha parading of a 25ft candle-holder or
menorah, placed on a gondola and taken round the canals to celebrate
the Jewish holiday.

Banim admits there have been difficulties - 'people are just scared of
something new' - but denies planning to 'change anything'. 'We want to
bring back what was once here. We came here and found a place that was
history, it is not by closing yourself in that you can grow. Things
are getting better and better, and we will eventually blend into one
Jewish community in Venice.'

All observers - and 'chabadniks' - agree that both the mission and the
controversial nature of the movement are rooted in the experience of
European Jews in the 20th century and the spiritual environment for
all religions in the increasingly secular modernity of the 21st
century.

'For a long time Jews just concentrated on survival,' said Banim. 'Now
everything is available, and the challenge is being Jewish though you
could be something else.'


Source: Raiders News Updates
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Cheers, Steve..

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