Stay updated with breaking news from Agudas chasidei. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Bernhardt, who is not Jewish, lit the shamash (“helper candle”) on the giant menorah in a cherry-picker alongside Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), his son, Rabbi Menachem Shemtov and his father, Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, chairman of the board of Agudas Chasidei Chabad and director of the Lubavitcher Center in Philadelphia. Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who emceed the ceremony and was also on stage with Bernhardt when the secretary gave short remarks prior to the lighting, told JNS on Friday that he, his son and his father were tested on Thursday as soon as they heard of the diagnosis. Their results came back negative, he said, and they were told there was no need to quarantine. ....
A major anniversary in Chabad is the 5 th of Teves. On that day in 1987, the Federal Court of New York State, after a protracted trial that attracted enormous public and media interest, decided unequivocally that the renowned Chabad library, once the personal collection of the Lubavitcher Rebbes down to the Rebbe Rayatz, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, belonged now to the official responsible body of Chabad-Lubavitch, Agudas Chasidei Chabad. The trial featured an array of testimony from renowned Jewish bibliographers and experts on Chassidic history and philosophy in addition to noted legal experts. To be decided was whether a prominent religious leader had any personal interest in his belongings, particularly those pertaining to his position as leader â an interest his close family descendants could inherit â or whether he was so utterly devoted to his flock that his belongings in general, particularly those expressing his religious position, were a public tru ....