Maverick Chabad group to toast the Messiah in J'lem, TA pubs

Movement says initiative not in keeping with its outreach etiquette.

By MATTHEW WAGNER
lubavitcher 88 (photo credit: )
lubavitcher 88
(photo credit: )
A maverick group of US Chabad Hassidim will mix free booze and theology Monday night to promulgate among pub-going Israelis the message that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, who passed away 13 years ago, is the Jewish Messiah. The strikingly Christian idea that a deceased man will be resurrected to bring salvation to the material world will be spread throughout some 60 drinking holes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Monday night. Monday is the third day of Tammuz, the thirteenth anniversary of Schneerson's death or "disappearance," as some Chabad Hassidim prefer to call it. Meanwhile, mainstream Chabad representatives disowned the initiative. Rabbi Menahem Brod, official spokesman for the Youth Union of Chabad (Agudat Tzeirei Chabad) said that that the campaign was giving Chabad a bad name. "Not a single Chabad rabbi has stood up to take responsibility for the campaign," said Brod. "Whoever is behind it has no right to use Chabad's name." Despite attempts by The Jerusalem Post to identify the initiators, none of the US Chabad rabbis behind the actual planning were willing to divulge their names.
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