1. For more on this issue, as well as on the theological intimations included in the eulogies for the victims of the attack, see Avishai Ben-Haim, “Sanctifying God’s Name Through Death? Not Enough,” nrg Maariv, December 28, 2008, www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/831/694.html [Hebrew].

2. It is difficult to obtain accurate information on the size of the Chabad movement, as the definition of membership is somewhat amorphous. According to rough estimates, the movement has between 40,000 to 50,000 followers. Considering that Chabad had only a few thousand adherents when Menachem Mendel Schneerson became its leader, these estimates give a good indication of the enormous impact he had on the movement.

3. Avishai Ben-Haim, “Rabbi Shach: Is He Really the Outstanding Rabbi of the Generation?” Ynet, November 2, 2001, www.ynet.co.il/articles/1,7340,L-1268268,00.html [Hebrew].

4. Quoted by Alon Dahan, “‘A Dwelling in the Lowly Realms’: The Messianic Doctrine of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (The Lubavitcher Rebbe),” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006), p. 245, note 161 [Hebrew]. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ’s declaration was made in response to Schneerson’s claim that the Chabad Rebbe (i.e., himself) is the “substance and essence” of God. See Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Likutei Sichot/Collected Talks, vol. 2 (Brooklyn: Karnei Hod Hatorah, 5752), p. 511 [Hebrew]. In addition, there is an audio recording from the 1960s in which the Rebbe can be heard singing Psalms 63:3, “To see your power and your glory, as I have seen you in the sanctuary,” to which he then adds, “to see my power and my glory” (emphasis mine). However, that the Rebbe’s “substance and essence” remark must be viewed in the light of hasidic theology in general and Chabad mysticism in particular in order to be properly understood; those familiar with both these complicated traditions will realize that the Rebbe did not identify himself simplistically with God, as a superficial interpretation of his statement might lead one to believe.

5. David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001), pp. 81-83. In this context it is worth mentioning several websites critical of Chabad messianism, such as www.FailedMessiah.com, edited by Shmarya Rosenberg (who was subsequently banished from Chabad for his writings), as well as http://moshiachtalk.tripod.com, by Orthodox rabbi Gil Student, who offers proofs that the Rebbe was not the messiah. See Gil Student, Can the Rebbe Be Moshiach? Proofs from Gemara, Midrash, and Rambam that the Rebbe, zt”l, Cannot Be Moshiach (Boca Raton, Fla.: Universal, 2002).

6. See Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Farbrengen/Convening, 5750, part 4 (Brooklyn: Lahak Hanachos, 1993), pp. 325-331 [Hebrew]. Here, the Rebbe refers to the Chabad custom of not sleeping in the sukka, and declares that whoever objects to this custom is an “instigator of quarrel and one who injects disagreement and hatred into the Jewish people” (emphasis in original). The Rebbe adds, “Such a Jew is not a ‘learned person of Torah,’” and is in fact “fighting the war of the S.M. [Samael, the Devil] against halacha,” and “delays redemption by our righteous messiah.” The Jew to whom the Rebbe is referring is none other than Rabbi Shach. See the full text at www.otzar770.com, a website containing scanned copies of all the Rebbe’s writings. Chabad’s followers feel a particular malice toward Rabbi Shach. According to a story—most likely fabricated—that is widely circulated within the movement, sometime in the early 1960s, Rabbi Shach wanted to be the head of Tomchei Temimim (“Supporters of the Innocent”)—the central yeshiva of the Israeli town of Kfar Chabad (“Chabad Village”)—but was rejected. Chabad’s youth organization, “The Armies of God,” used to sing a song about Rabbi Shach whose last verse was “The sacred Tomchei Temimim / Shach wished to be its head / and was shamefully driven away / due to lack of knowledge / and you shall say death to the goy (‘non-Jew’) / Lezer Shach, may his name be forgotten.”

7. This issue has remained unaddressed despite the recent publication of several books on the Rebbe, including Herman Branover, A Prophet from Your Midst: A Biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Kfar Chabad: M.M.S., 2006) [Hebrew], and Yitzhak Kraus, The Seventh: Messianism in the Last Generation of Chabad (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2007) [Hebrew]. The former is pure hagiography, while the latter is an academic analysis of the Rebbe’s messianic reflections. Surprisingly, both books avoid the question of whether the Rebbe himself believed he was the messiah and encouraged others to believe it as well. This avoidance serves to reinforce the false impression that the eruption of messianic faith among his followers was not encouraged by the Rebbe, let alone orchestrated by him.

8. In its original sense, this hasidic-kabbalistic expression refers to two types of redemptive awakenings among its members: itaruta deletata and itaruta dele’eila (“awakening from below” and “awakening from above”). Originally, the first type of awakening was believed to have been initiated by believers, and the second by God.

9. See Menachem Friedman, “Messiah and Messianism in Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism,” in David Ariel-Yoel et al., eds., The War of Gog and Magog: Messianism and Apocalypse in Judaism—In the Past and Present (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2001), pp. 174-229 [Hebrew]. The article appears online at www.biu.ac.il/SOC/so/Chabad-Mashi’ach.pdf.

10. Letter from Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, to Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter Magor, quoted in Friedman, “Messiah and Messianism,” p. 189.

11. The story of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok’s rescue from Europe would make for a good suspense novel, and is documented in Bryan Mark Rigg’s book Rescued from the Reich: How One of Hitler’s Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe (New Haven: Yale, 2004). In order to smuggle him out of occupied Warsaw in 1940, the rebbe’s followers pressured U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who in turn pressured American officials with connections to German officers in Poland. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German intelligence, coordinated the operation, and sent Ernst Bloch, an outstanding (and part-Jewish) Werhmacht officer to search for the rebbe and bring him to safety.

12. See Dahan, “‘Dwelling in the Lowly Realms,’” p. 23.

13. Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson, “The Truth About the Present Jewish Disaster,” Reading and Holiness 9 (June 1941), p. 7.

14. The Rebbe addresses the significance of “polishing the buttons” in a talk given on January 13, 1987. It can be viewed at

15. See Avirama Golan, “Messiah of Flesh and Blood,” Haaretz, February 11, 2007, in which she interviews Menachem Friedman, who discovered these facts through meticulous research. The article is available online at www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=824394.