3,000 Chabad envoys gather in Brooklyn

Rabbis and emissaries from 77 countries, with posts ranging from Long Island’s Hamptons to Bangkok, attend conference.

By JORDANA HORN, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Chabad rabbis pose for group photo in Brooklyn 311 (photo credit: Reuters)
Chabad rabbis pose for group photo in Brooklyn 311
(photo credit: Reuters)
NEW YORK – They probably won’t be retaking the picture if somebody blinks.
On Sunday morning, more than 3,000 hassidic rabbis in traditional dress will take their “class picture” outside 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as part of the 28th annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries.
Sunday is the culmination of the five-day conference, and will end with the largest sitdown dinner in New York City as more than 4,500 rabbis and lay leaders dance and sing over a banquet dinner at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. Sunday night’s dinner will be accompanied by a roll call of the international representatives of the Chabad movement, and will be streamed live on the Internet.
Chabad rabbis and emissaries from 77 countries, with posts ranging from Long Island’s Hamptons to Bangkok, are attending the conference, which is meant to reinforce Chabad’s international endeavors. A similar convention for women will take place in February.
The emissaries visited the grave of the Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, who died in 1994, on Friday. The Chabad movement still regards Schneerson as its spiritual leader, and his grave in Queens’ Montefiore Cemetery is viewed by many as a place to find blessings and inspiration.
The conference, a clear assertion of the movement’s strength worldwide, happens to coincide with the three-year anniversary of the attacks on the Chabad House in Mumbai, India.
During the Mumbai attacks, 154 victims and 10 Islamist terrorists died. The Chabad House was targeted, and the emissary couple and four Jewish visitors were murdered.