Chabad of Roosevelt Island

Chabad Lubavitch is by far the largest Jewish community building institution in the world today. Following the Holocaust, headed by the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson OBM, Chabad Lubavitch has grown to a network of centers in over 2,500 communities in 76 countries and 49 of the 50 United States (South Dakota is on the agenda). Chabad Lubavitch Centers offer a wide array of Jewish services, including educational, social and religious programming, each according to the needs of the local community (Kharkov, Ukraine is different than Boise, Montana).

While Synagogue and Temple membership and participation across North America are on a sharp decline, a recent study by the Jewish Federation in Miami shows that “More than one-in-four Jewish households -some 26 percent—have engaged with Chabad programming during the past year, including 42 percent of Jewish households with children at home” The survey found that Chabad attracted relatively young households. Nearly half of all Jewish households led by people under age 35—some 47 percent—visited a Chabad center or participated in a Chabad-related activity within the past year. Among other findings: Chabad attendees identified themselves as Conservative (32 percent), Reconstructionist (1 percent), Reform (19 percent) or “just Jewish” (23 percent).”

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory (1902-1994), the seventh leader in the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty, is considered to have been the most phenomenal Jewish personality of modern times. To hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of sympathizers and admirers around the world, he was -- and still is, despite his passing -- "the Rebbe," undoubtedly, the one individual more than any other singularly responsible for stirring the conscience and spiritual awakening of world Jewry.

Leadership: After the passing of his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, in 1950, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson reluctantly ascended to the leadership of the Lubavitch movement, whose headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. Soon Lubavitch institutions and activities took on new dimensions. The outreaching philosophy of Chabad-Lubavitch was translated into ever greater action, as Lubavitch centers and Chabad Houses were opened in dozens of cities and university campuses around the world.

מתוך RIJewish.org