April 18: The Rebbe

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the “rebbe” of the Lubavitch Hasidic community from 1950 until 1994, was born in the southern Ukraine on this date in 1902. Schneerson expanded his movement from a post-Holocaust remnant into a dynamo of Jewish outreach that now has more than 1,400 Chabad centers in seventy countries on six continents today. His conservative influence within Israel -- a land he never visited -- is strongly felt within the settler and ultra-Orthodox communities. Despite Schneerson’s political power, however, he was an oddly isolated man, particularly after the death in 1988 of his long-time wife Moussia; he was childless, rarely left his Brooklyn community (except to “consult” at the Queens gravesite of his predecessor), and was worshipped by his followers but had no real confidants or peers. Before suffering a debilitating stroke in 1992, Schneerson cultivated the belief within his mystically-oriented movement that he was the messiah. This precipitated a schism between messianists and somewhat more down-to-earth hasidim, one outcome of which is that the rebbe has not been replaced with a living leader.

“You cannot add more minutes to the day, but you can utilize each one to the fullest.” —Menachem Mendel Schneerson