The Habad-Lubavitch School of
Hasidism

The Habad-Lubavitch School of
Hasidism

Creator
Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections at the University of Colorado Boulder

2013

Stephanie Yuhas, Netanel Miles-Yepez, Deborah Fink, Sue Salinger, David Shneer, Andrew Violet, and Jacob Flaws.

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English

The Habad-Lubavitch school of Hasidism has become one of the most visible and important in the world today. It’s founder, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, was a genius of unparalleled ability who married the deepest teachings of Jewish mystical philosophy to Jewish prayer and observance. Thus, Habad-Lubavitch was known from its beginnings for its unusual blend of intellectual sophistication and contemplative depth.

For generations, Habad-Lubavitch was primarily a Russian lineage of Hasidism. But, after many years of persecution in Communist Russia and a narrow escape from the Nazis in Poland, in 1940, Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, re-established his “headquarters” at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. There he also established a yeshiva (seminary) to train young men like Zalman Schachter to be among the first generation of Habad-Lubavitch ‘emissaries’ in America.

Under the 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schnneerson, these emissaries would become outreach workers in communities across America and the world, offering support to traditional Jews, while also teaching disaffected Jews the ways of traditional Jewish observance. By the time of his death in 1994, the Lubavitcher Rebbe was considered an influential world leader (and by some, the Messiah), with “Habad Houses” and “representatives” in nearly every major city in the United States and the world.