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Title: Long after his death, rebbe’s words resound among Washington’s elite
Source:
JTA
URL Source: http://www.jta.org/page_view_story. ... rticleid=16774&intcategoryid=3
Published: Jun 29, 2006
Author: Ron Kampeas
Post Date: 2006-06-29 19:33:32 by Eoghan
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Keywords: None
Views: 490
Comments: 14
Elie Wiesel addresses a commemoration ceremony for Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson in Washington on Tuesday, June 27, 2006. Twelve years after Menachem Mendel Schneerson died, his followers and admirers in Chabad-Lubavitch delivered his message to Washington’s highest echelons. The timeless themes of education, security for Israel and reaching out to other faiths still resound, organizers said. Speakers including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Talmudic scholar Adin Steinsaltz and radio host Dennis Prager interacted with top Bush administration officials at the Tuesday-Wednesday event marking the Lubavitcher rebbe’s yahrzeit. The theme of the event, which attracted more than 300 Chabad officials from around the world, as well as diplomats and lawmakers, was education. If that appeared broad, it was because “we’re here to convey a message and not press a particular opinion,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of American Friends of Lubavitch. In a closed briefing, Michael Chertoff, the Bush administration’s Jewish Homeland Security secretary, told the gathering that education was key in preparing Americans for the battle against terrorism. “Education creates awareness, and awareness creates defense” was Chertoff’s message, according to those attending. Wiesel said that shortly before Schneerson died, he had warned Wiesel that it was imperative for the West to engage Islamic religious leaders before Western and Islamic worldviews diverged too far. The conference culminated in a White House briefing by Joshua Bolten, President Bush’s chief of staff, who also is Jewish. Bolten said Bush would never encourage Israel to give up territory without a Palestinian quid pro quo. Administration officials attending included Gregg Rickman, the top anti-Semitism official at the State Department, and Edward O’Donnell, who deals with Holocaust restitution. Other speakers included Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), the Senate majority leader. “I’m a physician. I’ve dedicated the better part of my life to healing human bodies,” Frist told the assembled Chabad emissaries. “You dedicate the better part of your lives to healing the human soul.” Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) was scheduled to speak, but was caught in traffic generated by flooding. Also appearing was the Australian defense minister, Brendan Nelson.
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#6. To: Eoghan (#0)
Secret Will of Rebbe Confounds Followers: Schneerson Took Forward; 3/18/1994; Jeffrey Goldberg Forward 03-18-1994 Secret Will of Rebbe Confounds Followers: Schneerson Took Un-Messiah-Like. Step NEW YORK -- The Lubavitcher Rebbe, whose followers believe him to be the Messiah, is harboring a most un-Messiah-like secret -- in 1987, sources tell the Forward, the Rebbe made out a will. The critically ill Rebbe wrote the will after winning a nasty court battle against his nephew, who claimed ownership of a library of priceless Lubavitcher books. According to several well-placed sources, the Rebbe, chastened by the experience, reorganized his movement's legal structure and wrote the will to protect his material goods from claims he feared others would make when he died. But many of his followers believe that the Rebbe is the immortal Messiah -- and they also believe that the Rebbe himself believes he is the Messiah. So the disclosure that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson recognized his own mortality and wrote a will may challenge the deeply felt convictions of the Messianists in Crown Heights, the seat of the Rebbe's empire. Worldly Goods "It's just ridiculous. It's not true," said Basha Oka, a spokeswoman for the International Campaign to Bring Moshiach, or Messiah. "Why? Because the Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach [King Messiah], that's why." The contents of the Rebbe's will could quickly become the focus of intense speculation and, if the past is a guide, vicious disputes within the Rebbe's inner circle. Little is known about the will's contents, though some in the Lubavitch movement say they have heard that the will contains the name of Rabbi Schneerson's anointed successor. But there are questions as to whether more than one will exists. One well-placed knowledgeable source said that the Rebbe actually wrote two documents in the 1980s -- one, a "secular" will that directs the distribution of his worldly goods, and another, written in Hebrew, in which he appoints a successor to lead the movement. Executor of Will Two sources familiar with the situation said, however, that the Rebbe wrote only one document -- the secular will. They say that one of the Rebbe's secretaries, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, is given a formal role in executing the will, an appointment Rabbi Krinsky could cite to buttress his own power base as he wages a fight for control of the movement. The sources said they did not know what if any role Rabbi Krinsky's nemesis in the Rebbe's secretariat, Rabbi Leib Groner, plays in the execution of the will. Neither man is currently seen as a potential successor to the Rebbe, though both, insiders say, would like to play the role of king-maker in picking another Rebbe. Neither rabbi could be reached for comment. There are at least three copies of the will in the hands of different lawyers and rabbis; two sources said that one of the Rebbe's lawyers in the library case, Nathan Lewin, is in possession of a copy. Reached at his Washington, D.C., office, Mr. Lewin said only that he would neither "confirm nor deny" that he is in possession of a copy. No Heirs One Lubavitcher rabbi familiar with the Rebbe's thinking said that, despite the assertions of hard-core Messianists, writing a will would be in character for Rabbi Schneerson. "The Rebbe doesn't leave things dangling," said the rabbi, who spoke on condition that his name not be used. "The Rebbe is more aware than anyone of the devotion of his Chasidim to him and he has equal devotion to the Chasidim and their need for clarification. He would do this so they shouldn't be in limbo." But the Chasidim do appear to be in limbo -- that is, the Chasidim who are not utterly convinced that the Rebbe will recover and reveal himself as Messiah. Rabbi Schneerson has no heirs and has never publicly named a successor, though his Chasidim say he has publicly proclaimed the imminence of the Messianic era. "The Rebbe has said that this is the last generation of galus [exile] and the first generation of geula [redemption]," the rabbi said. "This is the basis for the `Messianic Chasidism.' " In the late 1980s, though, the focus in Crown Heights was not on Messianism so much as it was fighting off the Rebbe's nephew, Barry Gourary, who claimed ownership of a large number of Lubavitcher books. After the Lubavitch movement won in court against Mr. Gourary, the focus switched to finding ways to protect Lubavitch property from outside claims. Lubavitch insiders say the Rebbe ordered the formation of an organization, Agudas Chassidei Chabad [The Association of Chabad Chasidim], which included on its board Rabbi Krinsky, Rabbi Avraham Shemtov, the Rebbe's Washington representative, and another Crown Heights rabbi, Zalman Gurary, to protect the movement's interests. Rabbi Krinsky had already emerged as the movement's de facto money man, overseeing the worldwide network of Lubavitch emissaries. Sources say the Rebbe trusted Rabbi Krinsky's financial judgment and that it would therefore be logical for Rabbi Krinsky to serve as the executor of the Rebbe's will. An expert in the affairs the Lubavitch Chasidim, Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queens College, said that although the will may deal only in property issues, the Rebbe's followers may try to search for hidden meanings in its pages. "Someone who is astute or opportunistic or imaginative could use the will as a metaphor for indicating something with political or spiritual significance," Mr. Heilman said. "Who controls the library, the books, will be an alternate power source to whoever has charismatic or spiritual authority."
..and Chertoff's life-long friend... http://www.samliquidation.com/perpetualpurim.htm The brief, based wholly on Talmud law, urged that certain principles of Talmud law should be adopted by the US. Interpreting the remarks Orthodox advocate Nathan Lewin, (24) Rabbi Adlerstein writes: Lewin builds his case on the strength of what likely is the world's oldest continuously-practiced legal code. He holds up the performance of Florida's temperamental electric chair to the scrutiny of the Jewish Talmud, the backbone of Jewish law for the last two millennia. … Lewin's essential point is that many of the pressing moral, ethical, and legal issues that are front-burner today were already painstakingly and lovingly considered by savants of the past. Jewish law in particular surprises and delights moderns, because it not only suggests solutions, but teaches how complex moral issues can be attacked and dissected. Within its ancient legal code are deep and detailed considerations of issues like privacy, allocating medical resources, the causes of violence, and many more. So much of the future stands to be illuminated by the minds of those who specialized in pondering deeply and subtly. — Rabbi Adlerstein (23) (But the Learned Elders of Sion is still strictly 'anti-Semitic text.')
#8. To: Eoghan, Robin (#7)
I read a book by written by the leader of another one of these crackpot Jewish groups. The title was Holocaust Eyewitnesses Accuse. I read it because the author whose name I forget was critical of the Jews who ran the German concentration camps. Anyway in the book he cited a list of immoral things the state of Israel was doing. The following was in that list and is word for word what he said as a crticism of the Zionist state complete with an exclamation point! "They are teaching girls to read!"
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#7. To: Jethro Tull (#6)
There are at least three copies of the will in the hands of different lawyers and rabbis; two sources said that one of the Rebbe's lawyers in the library case, Nathan Lewin, is in possession of a copy. Reached at his Washington, D.C., office, Mr. Lewin said only that he would neither "confirm nor deny" that he is in possession of a copy.
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